Chapter One: A Single Change
Static flashed across his vision; his HUD screaming alerts about memory corruption and imminent status lock. This wasn't good, they'd caught him off guard and he still didn't know where his scout was. All he knew was he'd lost contact with him, and that distraction had cost him. Electricity sparked across his large frame and he barely suppressed the shudder of pain that went through him as he used one hand to try and stem the flow of energon from his chassis.
He had to keep moving, his soldiers were relying on him to lead them. Still, if he couldn't get somewhere safe, he knew deep down he wasn't going to make it back to them. Transforming was painful, but he managed to do so because he had to. Memories sparked inside his processor as the warnings of memory corruption kept flashing. He had to get to safety, his Autobots needed him. He...And that was when everything went black with his last memory being of screaming breaks and a sharp stab of pain as he hit something hard before everything disappeared.
Charlie Watson was your average teen in many ways. She had her family; her mother and brother and a stepdad she wasn't sure she accepted. She had a job that she hated and was a social outcast at school. So yeah, she was perfectly average. That was fine, just...she was so angry all the time at her mother and brother. Had they forgotten about her father already? It hadn't even been that long, seriously! Her mother seemed to have rug-swept the issue as something that was part of her past and they all thought she should be happy with the way her life was now. Like, seriously, how dare they?!
She was angry all the time nowadays; it had even chased off the few friends she did have but she didn't care really. Let them leave, she didn't need them or anyone else giving her pity or false looks of sympathy. They didn't matter! She just...she wanted someone to understand that she was angry and sad and she just...she missed her dad. She missed seeing him smile at her when she figured out something new, she missed his laughter when she did something stupid and she missed his warm hugs that told her she was safe and loved. Why was that so hard for her mother to understand? She just...she couldn't be happy right now when she was still missing him so much! It felt like her family had just moved on without her and that pissed her off so much she wanted to scream and yell and throw things.
Instead she avoided them and was often short and snappy with everyone, but again she couldn't make herself care. She'd been trying to fix the Corvette for a long while now because it was what her father would want. Now though...now she was turning eighteen and wanted to do something more; something that mattered even just a little bit. She wanted to do something that would make her father proud of her, or even just make him smile that smile she'd never see again and...She realized she was crying again and angrily wiped her face against her shoulder.
She got up and left the house, not bothering with greeting her family before she was out the door. She just needed to get out of there. She tried going through her day dealing with the usual jerks and bullies that just needed to tear her down to feel better about themselves. It was pathetic, really, but somehow she didn't have the courage to tell them that to their faces no matter how angry she was. She headed for the scrapyard later that day, much later than usual and after yet another argument about her working there she wandered into the yard and just looked around. She needed a car of her own; maybe she'd find one here.
There were several that looked promising but would take too much work to get running. She was about to give up when she saw something larger than normal underneath an old tarp in the very back of the yard. Brown eyes narrowed since it was unusual for the yard to get something so big in. Looking at it, what she saw seemed to be an old rundown and very beat up Freightliner FL86 cab. It was seriously damaged and normally she'd dismiss it outright but something drew her in to get a closer look. She wondered just what this truck had been through to get so beaten up; other than the obvious that some idiot had driven the thing off the road.
She knelt down in front of the truck, thinking really hard about what she wanted to do. The thing was too big to use for a personal vehicle, but maybe it would be a good challenge for her to work on. It would get her mind off not being able to get the Corvette to work and maybe getting away from it for a while would help her look at the project with new eyes. The only question was, could she talk her Uncle Hank into letting her work on the truck without scrapping it? It seemed like a risk, but she really needed the distraction. It was her birthday after all, so maybe he'd go easy on her. It was a longshot, really, but still there was hope.
In the end it took another argument with the man ending with him telling her if she could get the hunk of junk running he'd let her have it for whatever she wanted and he'd even let her keep it there while she fixed it. Delighted, Charlie practically skipped back over to the truck and looked up at the large freightliner before trying the door and grinning to herself when it opened. It took her a few tries but she managed to get into the vehicle and settle herself in the driver's seat. Yeah, definitely not something she was going to use, but maybe she could sell it to help finance her fixing the Corvette. Only if she could get it started though.
Fingertips ran carefully over the steering while as she looked at all the instruments in front of her and realized just how complicated this thing was. Well, she didn't have to know what everything meant, she did know how to drive stick; her father had taught her. She ran her fingers over a strange symbol on the steering wheel, wondering what it meant before shrugging and dismissing it as something the driver must have added or something. The cab was silent, and somehow it felt like something was supposed to happen, but that was stupid so she dismissed that thought too. Instead she started looking for the stupid key to try the simplest method getting the truck started.
It actually took her a good ten minutes - or at least it felt that way - of looking before she found the stupid key and she couldn't help the little whoop of excitement that left her when the severely damaged truck actually started when she tried it. The truck roared to life, before settling into a more stable RPM as the engine began to idle. She took the time to celebrate, doing a little dance there in the cab and laughing happily. "Yes! Best present ever! Even if I can't take you home with me. Now let's see what we can do with you." She left the engine to idle for another few minutes after it probably hadn't been started in a long while before shutting down the engine and removing the key.
She carefully hopped out of the cab and went to tell Hank what she'd done. Begrudgingly he agreed to let her have the thing - being a man of his word - and she went to call her mom to let her know she'd be staying for a bit at the scrapyard to work on a project. She was so excited that even her mother's hesitation didn't slow her down for long. In the end, her mother agreed so long as it didn't become a regular thing. She promised, though she knew it was probably going to end up being a lie, and turned back to the truck that had sparked her imagination and grinned at herself over the challenge presented to her. She was going to need to get some books on how to fix this monster of a truck, and she honestly couldn't wait.