Chapter 2

Aftermath

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GOD-DAMN MINDS?!"

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Agent Fowler burst into the underground dam, lair of the Autobots. Under his arm, he had a stack of papers tucked inside a large folder, his voice was clearly not happy.

"Mind explaining why you chased down a civilian and damn near killed her?"

Said Autobots were distraught about the incident, but none more so than the tallest of the group.

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"It was a dirty 'con trick! Breakdown somehow switched his form and-" Bulkhead began until the tallest raised a hand, making his friend fall silent.

"While we meant no harm, it does not excuse our actions. It could have cost a young human their life and for that, we will do whatever we can to make things right." Fowler, however, scoffed.

"Oh yeah? How're you gonna do that without blowing your cover? Out of all people, this had to happen to someone-never mind. Look, the board's holding a meeting over this and they want you there Prime, so you'd better have a damn good explanation for what happened."

Prime lowered his head, exhaling. In truth, since yesterday, he could not get the vision of the terrified young woman out of his mind. The way her eyes widened in fear, it broke his spark. Just thinking about it hurt a lot. He glanced at the Autobots standing by. There were so few of them now, a lot of friends and family had been lost. He was almost responsible for taking someone else's family from them.

He looked back at Fowler, who was impatiently waiting for an answer.

"Well?"

"I take full responsibility for what happened, Agent Fowler. Whatever is necessary, we will do everything we can to make amends." However Fowler just grumbled, until noticing Ratchet was lost in thought.

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"Why this human?"

"What?" Bulkhead asked, before Bumblebee chirped in response, gesturing with his hands.

"Bee's right, Breakdown took on the exact form of that human's vehicle. Copied the license plate and everything. Seems a bit odd for such a specific target." Arcee added in response to the young scout's words. Fowler frowned, looking through the files before reading the plate number to confirm it.

"They're still not going to be happy about this. Hell, I'm on you side and I'm not happy about this." Ratchet was silent, still in thought. Why would the Decepticons do this? What was there to gain? Was it an accident or a deliberate attempt to kill this individual? If the plan was to use existing humans to disguise themselves and bait the Autobots into attacking them, it could end badly. Especially if the outcome was the same as today's, or worse.

Bee wondered over and whirred. "No, I'm quite fine Bumblebee. Shouldn't you be picking up young Rafael soon?" At the mention of the name, the scout perked up but paused, looking back at the medic before making a low whine. Ratchet sighed, lowering his voice and speaking more softly.

"I'm not sure. We need to see how things play out, as we still don't know the condition of the human involved in the earlier incident." He glanced at Optimus, knowing how much it was bothering him and not wanting their leader and his old friend to overhear his words.

Bumblebee rubbed his head before hesitantly walking off, transforming into his vehicle form and driving out of the tunnel towards Jasper. Ratchet sent another worried glance at Optimus, who had transformed into vehicle mode, the door opening for Agent Fowler.

"Would you like some assistance Optimus?" He asked the Autobot leader as Fowler shut the door behind him, going over the papers in his folder once more.

"Negative old friend. We will return later, for now, guard the base."

Ratchet sighed, watching the red truck drive out before turning back to the screen to continue working. It would help keep his mind off of it. Human anatomy was something they weren't familiar with, so even though he was a medic, he felt useless in this scenario.

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Earlier

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The crash had been loud, it was on the edge of the town but was still close enough for someone to witness the crash. A phone call was made, claiming that two gangs had a turf war that spiraled into a fight that resulted in a potential casualty.

Ratchet drove through the portal, Ms. June Darby sitting in the front seat.

"We have to be fast, the ambulance may be there already." She spoke, keeping her eyes out. "I still can't believe this." There was a sigh from the dashboard.

"Neither can we. We never wanted to harm any humans." June just sent the dashboard a glance before her eyes darted up.

"They already beat us here. Pull up beside them, at least I can help them and see what her condition is." Ratchet parked beside the car, wincing at the damage of the vehicle. He always had to remind himself of how fragile these organic creatures were. Are. He mentally scolded himself for assuming the woman had died.

June hopped out before the vehicle had stopped, racing over as firefighters were cutting the door off with the Jaws of Life. Two ambulance workers were preparing equipment, waiting for access to the unconscious patient. One was male, having bright green eyes and blonde hair, currently having a neck brace in hand. The other was a dark haired woman briefly mentioning something to the firefighters before noticing June's approach.

"June Darby, nurse from Jasper hospital." The ambulance workers standing by nodded.

"Good, we could use the help. We don't know how badly she got hurt but apparently her car got bowled over by a semi truck. She's lucky to be alive."

"So let's keep her that way-" June said, kneeling down to have a look. Rain was still upside down in the car, a trail of blood ran up from her mouth up to the top of her head and was dripping on the roof but it wasn't a lethal amount. Her eyes were open but glazed over.

"Not conscious, looks like a potential concussion. Also blood in the mouth. Breathing is normal, so I don't think her ribcage is broken." The ambulance workers already had a stretcher and neck brace ready.

"Alright we got it, stand back for a sec." One of the firefighters spoke, having messy brown hair and hazel eyes. June nodded and got off her knees, brushing her hands off onto her pants. She picked up her bag, sanitizing her hands and putting on disposable gloves. She leaned in and pressed two fingers to the side of her throat gently, unmoving for a moment.

"Pulse is slightly irregular but otherwise stable." The other ambulance worker, a woman with equally dark hair as June spoke, stepping back as the firefighters removed the door. Once they placed it to the side, they moved in with cutters to the seat belt.

"She's gonna drop once we cut this, be ready to catch her. We don't want to risk moving her around too much, we have no idea if she's internally bleeding or not." The green eyed medic spoke. Meanwhile, Ratchet behind them was tempted to transform and remove the human himself. He could do so without additional stress and the last thing Prime needed was the death of a human haunting him.

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At that moment, a news anchor van drove up, so he quietly cursed and remained in vehicle form. Even if he wanted to, it was too risky.

"Agent Fowler, we have a problem. The human emergency services have already arrived on the scene to assist miss Frosteine. Ms. June Darby is also joining them now but we will not be able to extract her ourselves."

"We'll meet them at the hospital and have someone on standby to make sure Frosteine doesn't leave or talk about what she may or may not have seen." Fowler responded, already heading over towards the hospital, dreading the meeting that would have to occur afterwards when his superiors heard about what happened.

June had ridden with the ambulance Rain was in, assisting with the other medics. Rain was continually going in and out of consciousness, not responding to any of their questions but mumbling about something they couldn't quite distinguish.

"...no driver…no…no drive…driver.." The green eyed medic frowned, his blonde hair briefly falling in his eyes.

"Is she saying no driver?" He frowned, checking the neck brace hadn't moved while monitoring her pulse. It was still irregular.

"It sounds like it Sam." The dark haired nurse said from the front seat.

"You can hear that from the front?" June said in surprise.

"Yeah, Max has crazy hearing. Certainly has helped a lot in tricky situations. We're new by the way, just transferred to Jasper about a week ago."

"Ah, I was wondering why the two of you looked somewhat familiar. June Darby."

"The June Darby? We were supposed to be teamed up with you earlier but you know, we had to finish paperwork that somebody forgot to fill out." Max said from the front as Sam blushed bright red in the face.

"You said you wouldn't talk about that."

"And you said you'd do the dishes Friday night so I could make dinner for my wife's in-laws. You should have heard how they chewed us out for it." Sam bit his lip.

"Yikes, I had no idea they were heading over, I thought that was next week?" June glanced between the two, before looking at Rain who seemed stable. She frowned a bit, still mumbling about the driver. That could be a problem for them.

"So did we but they dropped in at the last minute. Something about someone having a cancellation, so they could go earlier for a slight discount, though I think they were full of it." Max chuckled. "You still gotta do dishes though."

Sam pouted as June blinked. "I'm sorry but do you two live together?" Sam blinked.

"Oh yeah, the four of us do. At first it was because we were all moving to Jasper anyway, plus there was a good deal on this large house that's a bit of a fixer-upper, so me, my missus, her and her misses figured why not. Plus it saves a lot on travel price too." He chuckled, glancing down at Rain.

"She seems stable but we'll keep going steady just to be sure. It's just that heartbeat that has me a bit worried. It's going on longer than a palpitation would." Sam turns towards a radio and calls through.

"Don't worry, I got it." Max spoke, already having a radio in hand. "Jasper Hospital, we have an injury from a car accident. Young woman in a SUV had a head-on collision with a semi truck. Suspected internal bleeding and spinal injuries. We'll arrive shortly." Max's voice could be heard from the front as she spoke into the radio. Sam nodded appreciatively, looking back at the monitor.

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June glanced at the two. The banter between them was sweet, she could tell they were old friends and based on how they handled this, it was some welcomed help and addition to their hospital. She looked back down at Rain, now lost in thought.

The Autobots had been there to protect them, yet they had almost killed this woman with essentially no effort. A mistake that almost cost her life and from what she knew, this woman hadn't done anything to deserve it. It made her wonder about Jack being around Arcee.

Both her and Jack had been in danger from just knowing them and while Arcee had saved them time and time again, she couldn't help but worry. Especially from seeing the aftermath of an aggressive Autobot resting on the gurney before her.

"They say a truck bowled her car over. How the hell she doesn't have more injuries is beyond me."

"-that we know of. We still need to do X-rays and see if she has internal bleeding or anything broken that we can't see." June added.

"When you have a patient that looks like this, you have to be extra careful. Sometimes they can have severe injuries that aren't visible. I almost made a terrible mistake once in my early days when I tried to move a patient who looked fine but had a broken vertebra and nearly paralyzed them from the neck down. If it wasn't for Barbara, my supervisor at the time, that man would have been in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. You must always assume that one wrong movement can and will harm or kill a patient."

Sam nodded, having a serious expression. "Yeah. The last thing you want to do is make things worse. Thanks for the reality check." June stared quietly at him for a moment before looking back at the unconscious woman.

He did have a point. She was expecting her to have multiple broken limbs, a concussion or to have been outright killed. Either Optimus saw she was human and slowed down at the right second, or this woman was incredibly tough. Either way, she was extremely lucky.

"Hospital's coming up." Max called from the front, slowing down as two more nurses could be seen jogging out.

June could see Fowler exiting a government vehicle, jogging over to follow suit. Max looked up.

"Sir, I'm going to need you to stand back, she's in a fragile condition right now." June looked over and nodded.

"If you're a relative, we will update you on her well-being but right now she isn't conscious. Said something about 'no driver.'" She added, covertly informing Fowler about what happened. He just nodded and stood back, watching as they entered the building.

Shortly, his phone began ringing. Fowler sighed, flipping it open.

"Fowler here." He frowned a bit more. "No, it's being handled. She's in Jasper hospital right now, currently unconscious-yes, I understand sir. Yes, we'll be there as soon as we can." Fowler flipped the phone shut and swore.

Some of the government bodies had been antsy about the Autobots living on earth and had been looking for an excuse to retract their refuge. With a human being harmed by what looks like a deliberate attack from an Autobot, it certainly painted an ugly picture for them. That was the last thing that was needed right now.

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Current time

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A horrible headache greeted Rain when she opened her eyes.

The lights were too bright, the room was too white-

Wait.

She sat up but winced, feeling an intense ache through her chest. Glancing down, she noticed she was in a hospital bed. How did she get here?

A flash of a truck gunning towards her. No driver and a strange symbol.

She remembered now. A group had chased her through the town and when she tried to find help, a truck slammed into her car, then… then it was pretty hazy. Rain couldn't remember what happened next. She must have been unconscious.

Her chest ached, her knees felt a bit weird and she could tell there was going to be some nasty bruises as well. A packaged deal. Gently rubbing her eyes, Rain looked out the window but flinched. Was that the truck that hit her? Rain quickly laid down, wincing as the movement was too fast an agitated her injuries.

".…my bones."

"What about them?" Rain flinched, looking over at the door. A gruff looking man in a suit stood in the doorway, having some dark bags under his eyes and looking generally…annoyed.

"Um, nothing. Do you know what happened?" The man walked in, gently closing the door behind him and stopping at the end of the bed. He cleared his throat. "I was actually hoping to ask you that. One of the ambulance crew mentioned that you said something odd while you were… out of sorts."

He opened the folder he had, making Rain realise it was pretty damn thick. Why was so much paperwork needed for this? He seemed to be reading something.

"Something about 'no driver' apparently. Could you go into a bit more detail? We're trying to figure out what happened." Rain blinked, looking off to the side to think. She didn't recall saying anything or talking to anyone, though she didn't remember much except… well, that.

"I… well honestly, I don't remember talking to anyone, I just remember seeing a big-ass truck gunning for me after these lunatics were chasing me. I don't know if they thought I was someone else or were looking for a fight. I just..." Rain leaned forward, rubbing her head. It was starting to throb from trying to recall those events.

"It's okay, take your time. Anything you can remember, anything at all can be a big help. I'm Agent Fowler by the way." She nodded, feeling exhausted. "Thanks Agent Fowler, I appreciate it. It's been… well, it's been a rough few months to say the least."

"I can imagine, especially after something like this. Here's my card if you can think of anything." He said, reaching forward with a black business card. Rain flipped the card over, reading through it.

"Is this to figure out why those guys were chasing me? This investigation?" Fowler nodded, adjusted his suit slightly. "Yeah, we're trying to get to the bottom of this, same as you, we want answers. If there's troublemakers out there, we need to know about it."

"...yeah." Rain laid down again, rubbing her temples. "Sorry, my back is still a bit sore." Fowler nodded. "That's fine, we'll get this matter sorted, just focus on getting better miss Frosteine and if you remember anything at all, call at any time." He quickly left, quietly shutting the door before calling someone, his voice faintly fading.

Rain leaned back and shut her eyes, glancing at the ceiling once more.

That was a hell of a start to her 'new life' in Jasper.

Author's note:

Sorry about the delay with this chapter, just had to juggle some IRL things but I hope you enjoy it :)

I tried to look up the procedure for removing unconscious patients from a flipped car but had no luck, so I apologise if that seems really out of place ^-^;

(Also if you get the hidden reference, you're awesome ;) )