The fourth week, Ironhide didn't return from L.A. until after my normal bedtime. I heard him come in, and he and Dad talked in quiet voices out in the living room. They were so soft I couldn't make out the words, so I texted Ratchet. /What happened?/

/You should be asleep./

My hands started shaking with a spike of adrenaline and fear. /And you're trying to avoid telling me the truth. Don't freak me out here, Ratchet./

/There is nothing to 'freak out' about, Firebrand. Bone integration on the test subject was a qualified success. At this point, it's a matter of which of several approaches will be less traumatic to your tissues. Since this is a procedure never before performed on humans, we need to consider carefully each step. Either way will result in healing, but I want to make your recovery as easy and swift as possible./

He's just fine-tuning, I tried to tell myself. There's no danger here. He's right for once - nothing to freak out about.

Dad knocked at my door, and I texted, /Traitor!/ to Ratchet. "Come in," I said out loud.

"Ratchet says he upset you and that your stress indicators are rising?"

I snorted. "He does that to everybody."

"True," he said, ambling in to sit on the storage bench at the foot of my bed. "But remember what I said. I'm you dad, and I want to take care of you."

Giving in, I asked, "Whatcha got for a racing heart, sweaty palms, and goosebumps?"

"Breathing exercises are always a good place to start for that sort of thing." Like in the hospital, he talked me through it, slowing my breath bit by bit until I was again tired enough to yawn.

The next morning after he got me into my wheelchair, he asked if he could see my phone.

"Why?" I suspiciously asked.

"Your subconscious reacted to something Ratchet said. I'm curious what it was."

He was right - it was something of a mystery - and so I shrugged and pulled up the text convo.

He read over it several times, looking more puzzled by the minute. "That's it?" he eventually said as he handed the phone back to me.

"Yeah. I don't get it, either. I guess…" I paused and tilted my head, trying to remember. "The words were Ratchet's, but I heard them in Arcee's voice when I read them."

"That's...different. Why hers, do you think?"

Then it clicked. "She tried to downplay the danger, when we had to leave the ranch. Everyone else was rushing around in panic mode, and she had this kind of...calm frosting over a very tense cake."

Dad started chuckling at my description and I crossed my arms defiantly.

"Sorry," he said, forcing himself to settle down. "It makes sense, but it was just an interesting mental image."

I half-smiled in agreement.

He rolled me into the kitchen, where Mom was already sipping a cup of tea and Hyde and Mia were making a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast.

"Hey Sarah," Dad asked her, "what flavor is tense cake?"

"Dad!" I whined, and Mom just gave him a really confused look.

….

Dr. Hatchett met us at the physical therapy wing of the hospital. As the others filed past, he crouched down in front of me and Dad (who was pushing my wheelchair). "I apologize about upsetting you last night. We'll add 'beating around the bush' to the list."

"The list?"

"Of problematic stimuli. Your watch has alerted us to several, and you've noticed some as well."

Because that wasn't going to make me feel spied on. "Like what?"

"When you were at the theater in Palmdale, your body reacted and your father reported that you'd all been walking past an auditorium showing a war movie. The sound of explosions and weapons-fire is a trigger, though that's not unexpected. The sound of tires squealing as they peel out, heavy bass vibrations from neighboring cars, a passing jet, that sort of thing. I also expect that the sound of a metal-on-metal impact or glass breaking could also be triggering. These were all sensory stimuli, though. I didn't expect 'not being forthright' to be problematic for you. I apologize. We will all be more direct in the future."

I sighed in frustration. "You don't have to walk on eggshells around me, Ratchet."

His expression turned grim, and with a flicker of fear, I remembered how terrifying his anger was. "You were damaged enough by our carelessness. We will not traumatize you by unnecessarily subjecting you to additional pain."

"That's Ratchet-speak for 'I love ya, kiddo,'" Dad said. "Something might have gotten lost in translation, though, mech."

Ratchet huffed and stood, gesturing for me to continue on my way to PT.

…

The fifth week, Ratchet and Ironhide made it back from L.A. just after we'd finished cleaning up after dinner. I was sitting in my wheelchair next to Mom (who was on the couch), and we were trying to decide what to do with the evening.

Dr. Hatchett was grinning from ear to ear when he strode into the living room. "The transplant is ready, and we have a clear path forward in terms of treatment. In three days, we'll perform the surgery."

My breath caught, and Mom squeezed my hand tightly.

"Well this calls for tense cake with calm frosting!" Dad said from the recliner. Mom threw a couch pillow at him.

"No," she said, "this calls for chocolate cake from that place in town."

Mia raised her hand, "I second the femme!"

I nodded, grinning at a wicked thought. "Chocolate cake, except for Dad. He gets to stay here and figure out the recipe for tense cake."

"Hey!" he protested, and when he tried to stand, Hyde's heavy hand on his shoulder kept him in his chair.

I laughed and Ratchet started wheeling me toward the door. Dad started chewing out Hyde, but Hyde just winked at me. I didn't relent and text Hyde to bring Dad along until we were all buckled in.

...

I was numb, and it scared the slag out of me. Where was Mom? Was Stockade torturing her? Was she dead? Ironhide? Did Bludgeon kill him?

"Sweetheart," Mom said, her fingers brushing my forehead.

"Not so loud," I mumbled. Didn't she remember Bludgeon telling us to be quiet?

"Sorry, Annabelle," she said in a softer voice. "You're out of surgery. Ratchet says it was a success."

That couldn't be right. Ratchet never made it to the battle. "Mirage?"

"What?"

"You mean Mirage, right?"

Dad said, "Open your eyes, Annabelle," and my surprise at the sound motivated me to try. He was supposed to be on base at Edwards.

Finally, my eyes fluttered open, and I saw him dressed as a civilian with Ratchet's holoform standing next to him.

"You're safe," he assured me. "You're okay."

My brow furrowed as I looked at my IV. "Where am I?"

"We're at Los Angeles Air Force Base," Ratchet said. "It was easier to transport you here than to haul your tissue transplants all the way to Edwards." Tilting his head, he asked, "You don't remember driving here this morning?"

"It'll come back to her, Ratch," Dad said with a small smile. "Give her a few minutes."

"Where did you think we were?" Mom asked.

"The 'cons," I whispered.

"They're dead," Dad said bluntly. "Or the ones who hurt you are, anyway."

That came back to me, too, and it eased some of the tension in my chest. "Optimus killed Stockade. Put an energon blade through his spark."

"You saw that?" Ratchet asked, sounding upset.

I couldn't think of why he would be. "Yeah."

"It's probably good she did," Dad said to him. "Check the watch."

"Hm," he answered.

Mom ignored them, instead taking my hand and squeezing it tightly. "As soon as you're stable, we can go home, sweetheart. Against all the odds, we're both going home and in one, complete piece."

…

It didn't really feel much different having a complete set of bones again, but that was probably because I was in traction. Bones or prosthesis, it was all the same when I couldn't use them yet. The soft tissue had to be solidly on the way to recovery before I could even move my leg and hip again. Mostly, I was just really sore.

It took three days for Ratchet to be convinced they could load me onto one of his gurneys without disrupting the healing process. And that was with him taking the special concoction that sped up my transplants' cell growth and using it to speed up the healing for all my blood vessels, tendons, muscles, and stuff. But on the third day, he declared the transplant a success and we were good to go. Finally, we were going home!

We didn't get to break out Wheeljack's Moonshine, so the flight back to Diego Garcia was another long one. I was basically strapped down on the gurney the whole time, but between my Autobot-enabled cell phone and my folks (who also hung out in the back of Ratchet's ambulance), I was reasonably entertained. The only weird thing was that Mia and Hyde were AWOL. "They're not 'chatting,' are they?" I asked about 12 hours into the flight.

"Don't know and don't want to," Dad answered.

Mom chuckled and winked at me. I just rolled my eyes.

…

Stockade was reaching for me, gears whirring, and Bludgeon wasn't there to stop him. This time it was with an outstretched hand instead of just a finger.

I tried to scramble out of his way, but he grabbed me, making my hip ache. When he turned me over, though, it was Ratchet I was looking up at - with red optics. On the hand that wasn't painfully gripping me, a finger transformed into a saw, the blade whistling as it spun. "Let's see how this primitive ape's hip works," he growled.

I jumped awake with a shout, breathing hard and gripping my sheets. I felt something restraining me, and my fingers found the straps that were holding my legs and hips immobilized on the gurney. Not Ratchet, not a robot of any kind. Just straps. My thigh was throbbing though. I must have been moving it in my sleep.

I looked around, but it was pitch black inside. Through a large window, though, I could see moonlight in the palm trees. Was I home for real? I thought so. I had a memory of the 'bots setting up my bed in the living room, but it was less vivid than the dream.

A mechanical sound from the kitchen made me jump - sending a stab of pain through my thigh - and it took me a good thirty seconds to realize it was just the fridge.

I tried to do the breathing exercises Dad had taught me. In my head, I told myself I was in my own home, in my own bed. I was safe. But the adrenaline was making my heart race, and I gasped again for breath.

With a glimmer, Ratchet's holoform popped into existence in the kitchen. In the moonlight, I could see his silhouette as he walked toward the living room, but he paused under the doorway. "May I come in?"

His voice was gentle, completely unlike the dream, and it soothed me a bit. I answered, "Sure."

"You are unwell," he said.

"It was just a nightmare." But having him here was helping. Having someone to talk to, to focus on, was already making it easier to breathe.

"You haven't had one for the last two months." I couldn't see his suspicion in the dark, but I could sure hear it.

I sighed, trying to wrap my head around the nightmare. All I could figure was that my subconscious wasn't happy about my hip hurting so much. "It's probably just my squishy brain trying to make sense of why I'm in pain again."

"Do you require pain medication or a sleep aid?"

I'd hoped to leave the narcotics behind, but I was never going to sleep now without some kind of drug. "Yeah, probably a pain killer. But don't tell my folks. I don't want them to worry."

"I'm your doctor, not your dealer. I will most certainly tell your parents about this."

Autobots - always had to be the good guys! Remembering my nightmare made me shudder at the thought of them not being the good guys. "Fine, whatever. I'll need a glass of water to wash it down."

"And food to prevent nausea. I'll be right back."

…

The next morning, Mia and Hyde were there to make breakfast like usual, and Ratchet was there to torture me. Technically it was physical therapy, but when he charged the diodes on my leg to electically stimulate my muscles, it sure seemed like torture. Muscle group by muscle group, he went through my lower back, my uninjured glute and thigh, and both my calves. "Another week of this," he cheerfully declared as he peeled off the diodes, "and we'll be able to start some motion exercises."

"Yipee," I grumbled.

"Get the girl some chocolate," Mia called from the kitchen.

"Coming up," Mom answered. She was in a therapy boot, but she didn't need crutches anymore, and it made me happy to see her walk into the living room. Even better, she was carrying a plate with some chocolate crinkle cookies on it.

Ratchet smiled and nodded as he accepted a cookie from her, and then she gave the plate to me.

"Ready for your next patient?" she asked him.

"Victim, more like," I said under my breath.

Ratchet ignored me and answered Mom, "Yes, but let's adjourn to the back porch. Dr. Sarkisian is due to arrive in about five minutes."

I wasn't sure what to expect with this Dr. Sarkisian, but hopefully she'd put me in a better mood than Ratchet. Before I finished my third cookie, there was a knock at the door. Mia let the stranger in and then left out the back door - giving us the appearance of privacy, at least.

Swallowing the last of my cookie, I thought to offer Dr. Sarkisian one. She shook her head and said, "You must be Annabelle."

I set the plate aside on the coffee table beside me. "Yep."

"So where would you like to start?"

I considered that. "What are my options?"

"Well, you could tell me a bit about yourself, I could do the same, or we could jump right into talking about what you need most right now."

That last option sounded more scary than I liked to admit. "Why don't you tell me more about you. All I know is that my dad and Ratchet trust you a lot and that your name is Dr. Sarkisian."

She smiled and nodded. Gesturing to a recliner, she asked, "Do you mind if I…?"

"No, go right ahead."

Sitting down and setting her messenger bag on the floor beside her, she said, "Where to start. I guess at the beginning. Do you know the ethnic origin of the name Sarkisian?"

"Um...the reject twins probably could tell you, but I couldn't."

She solemnly nodded. "It's Armenian. My ancestors were survivors of the Armenian Genocide. You could say my family is a living argument in favor of treatment for trauma. We've passed our trauma down from generation to generation, just like the curly hair. It was even worse for my dad - he was a Vietnam vet. So while I'm not technically military, I have enough of a background to be able to empathize."

I tilted my head curiously. "If you're not military, how did you end up working with a top-secret unit on an isolated military base?"

She half-shrugged. "I was in private practice working with children and adolescents in New Jersey when September 11th happened. I did what I could for the families of the fallen first responders, but as they healed, I realized I wanted to do more. That's when I transitioned into military service with a civilian GS rank. Since NEST is something of a long-term assignment for its servicemembers, and private counselors aren't available locally, they needed someone who could help both the traumatized soldier and the grieving widow or orphan. I fit that bill, and I've been here with NEST for the last eight years."

She paused, waiting for my next question, and I tried to think if there was anything else I wanted to know. "What about your family - immediate family, I mean. Do you have any kids?"

A smile spread across her face. "Yes, my husband and I have twins, a boy and a girl. They're both stateside in college. They went to school here on the island for three years before graduating. My daughter wants to go into medicine and currently is working on her masters in pediatrics. My son wanted to travel the world first before being tied down to a university, so he's graduating this year in business administration."

I squinted, thinking hard. I vaguely remembered a set of twins in high school while I was still in junior high. "They were really good at beach volleyball?"

Her smile broadened. "Yes. So now that you have my life's story, is there anything you want to tell me about yourself?"

I sighed. I could whine about my unusual upbringing, but that's not why she was here. And if she was also the shrink for the frontline NEST fighters, I really shouldn't waste her time. "I don't know. I mean, my dad's convinced I'm crazy, and sometimes my body does crazy things for no reason, so maybe he's right. But it's not like I'm going to go postal or anything."

She met my gaze, all serious. "Trauma buried alive doesn't die - it comes out sidewise. It can destroy careers and marriages. It can drive people to alcoholism and drug abuse. I'm here to help you root it out, Annabelle, to keep it from hurting you any more than it already has. I'm here to help you heal. To do that, I need to know what your wounds are. But unlike Ratchet, I can't just run a scan and tell what parts of your psyche are hurting. I need your help to discover that."

I blushed a little - like Mikaela asking if I was okay, Dr. Sarkisian's words hit home in a way I couldn't dodge. "Okay."

"You said your body is doing unusual things. Can you tell me more about that?"

"Mostly it's this weird breathlessness. Dad's helped me a few times by talking me through it, but unless he's there to coach me, it doesn't always work."

"That would be frightening for anybody. Anything else?"

"I had a nightmare last night. I couldn't breathe afterward and Ratchet had to give me some painkillers for me to be able to sleep again."

"Those can be very disturbing. I'm glad Ratchet was here to help you. If you don't mind my asking, was the nightmare a memory?"

"Kind of, but not really. I dreamed I was...wait. What's your clearance level?"

"Higher than yours."

"So you know about the Decepticons?"

"Megatron. Starscream. Yes."

Reassured, I nodded and said, "I dreamed that one of Shockwave's goons had me - he was the one who hurt me to begin with. But then he turned into Ratchet and...he started to dissect me with his circular saw. That's when I woke up."

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. "And you trusted Ratchet to get you painkillers after all that?"

"Well, it was his holoform in real life, not the base mode from my dream, but yeah. I think I'd trust him either way. I mean, I still felt freaked out - that's why I couldn't breathe - but I knew the real Ratchet would never hurt me on purpose."

She nodded, smiling just a little. "I know it might not seem like it, but these are all good signs."

Good signs? "I'm sorry, what?"

She sighed once. "Sometimes it's helpful to think of trauma like a physical wound. If you got a bad cut, you'd go through different stages for healing. Things like cleaning the wound, stitching it up, changing the bandages, pulling the stitches out, and so on. Some of these stages would hurt, some would feel strange, and some would be indifferent. You follow me so far?"

I nodded.

"These panic attacks are like cleaning the wound - it's still wide-open and bleeding. The nightmares are stitching it up - your subconscious mind is processing it all and trying to figure out if you're okay or not. Typically they don't start until you feel safe. The fact that you could distinguish between the nightmare Ratchet and the real Ratchet means your mind is already starting to process some of your experiences. So even though these are painful stages, they are signs of progress. The fact that your dad even can successfully coach you through breathing exercises during a panic attack is also a good sign. A hopeful one."

I huffed a frustrated sigh. "Somehow, it doesn't feel hopeful."

She half-smiled. "Are you familiar with the term 'resilience,' Annabelle?"

"Not really."

"In psychology, it means the ability of a person to 'bounce back' so to speak from trauma. It's a learned behavior, but you also have some advantages you probably don't see right now. I've read up on you a bit - neither of your parents have had clinical depression or other mental or emotional disorders. So you won the genetic lottery there. Your dad has both academic training and personal experience dealing with trauma, and he's already shared some of the tools in his coping kit, which also gave you a leg up. And you have a network of strong personal connections, which helps with resilience. That doesn't mean you won't have hard days or rough nights - you will. But you have some significant advantages when it comes to learning resilience."

I hadn't thought about it like that. "It just sounds like so much work."

"It is," she assured me, "but it's much easier than leaving a psychological wound open and bleeding everywhere. And like I said, resilience is a learned behavior. As long as you're willing to learn - even through the tough times - you'll become increasingly resilient. And the good news is you're not alone with this. If the nightmares get too disturbing, there are medications that can help with that. And just like with the breathing exercises, there are other things you can do to help regain control of your body and mind. That's part of what I'm here for, if you want to learn them. But it's your choice. No one can force you into this kind of healing."

I took a deep breath, considering. The one thing I was sure of is that I didn't like what was happening to me. I didn't like that I couldn't sleep without narcotics. I didn't like that I was afraid to fall asleep. That I was afraid of Ratchet. I didn't like not trusting my body to fragging breathe already, and I didn't like making everyone around me worry. But did I dislike it more than I disliked the work it would take to heal from this? Ratchet had a miracle fix for my hip, but somehow I doubted he'd be able to do something similar for a wounded soul.

But what was the alternative, really? Sleeping pills for the rest of my life? Never swimming in the ocean again because I was afraid of a panic attack too far from shore?

Looking back to Dr. Sarkisian, I said, "I kind of suck as a patient."

She chuckled. "As long as you don't give me reason to push the panic button under my desk, you won't be my worst."

"Wait, really?"

She shrugged nonchalantly. "Flashbacks can be hell, especially when you're dealing with special ops."

"Oh." It somehow made me feel better knowing that she'd helped people who had been through far worse than I had. If she could help someone like that then whatever I could throw at her would be totally manageable.

"When do we start?"

"About twenty minutes ago," she said with a hint of a smile. "For now, let's plan on meeting twice a week for scheduled appointments. I'll work that out with your parents. I'm available via text messaging outside of those appointments, though, and we can talk or schedule an emergency appointment if you need it, too. Don't hesitate to reach out if you feel the need, because I'm here for you."

The thought of her being on my side warmed my heart, and I smiled a little. Nodding in approval, she dug around in her messenger bag, eventually pulling out a journal and a nice pen. Handing them to me, she said, "This is your therapy journal. It would be best if you write in it every day, even if it's just to say, 'Everything was normal today.' No one will read it - not me, not your parents - unless there's a passage you choose to share."

And I swear she was a mind-reader, because she added, "And handwritten really is better than typing it up as a Google Doc or something. Writing with pen and paper is a different exercise for your mind from typing. It's more thoughtful, reflective, and deliberate - since you can't use the backspace key or copy and paste. It will be more effective at helping you process your experiences."

I deflated a little - who wrote with pen and paper? - but as long as I was the only one who had to decipher the chicken-scratch, I guessed it would be okay.

"Any questions for me so far?"

I thought hard for a minute. One question did occur to me, but it was so...childish and terrifying and embarrassing that I didn't want to ask it.

She raised her eyebrows expectantly, and I answered, "No, ma'am."

Her expression turned serious again. "I'll take you at your word, but remember that I can't help you with wounds you hide, Annabelle."

Calling me out on my lie. Dang, she was good. Maybe even as good as Mom, at least when it came to reading me.

She continued on, though. "One other thing that will help your mind as much as your body will be good sleep hygiene. Do you know what that means?"

"Showering before bed?"

She smiled at my half-joke. "It means giving your body every edge possible when it comes to getting a good night's sleep. So that means installing a blue-light filter on your devices and not using them for at least half an hour before you go to bed. It means having a dark bedroom that's quiet or has some white noise. Most importantly, it means going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, even on weekends."

Her talk about going to bed made me finally blurt out my question. "I know it's kind of stupid, but...what about...tonight?"

Dr. Sarkisian didn't laugh, though. Very seriously, she said, "That's not stupid; it's actually a really good question. If you genuinely need a sleep aid, there's no shame in that. I'd like to share a few more tools for your toolkit, though, to broaden your therapeutic horizons. If you still need that sleep aid after you've gone through these exercises, then go ahead and use it."

I frowned at the thought of having therapeutic homework every night, and she added, "Remember resilience - as long as you're trying, you're succeeding."

"Right." I nodded. Then taking a deep breath, I asked, "Whatcha got for my toolkit, then?"