Author's Note: Thanks for your patience with the delay again - we Botosphere writers haven't been able to gather for a while due to COVID restrictions, and Zoom calls just aren't the same. But we're all still alive and (mostly) well! Hope you all are, too! ~ Eowyn77

The next time I woke up, Optimus' younger Tim Furst holoform was at my bedside, and he was the only other one in the room.

I blinked, pretty sure my brain was too fuzzy for this to be a dream. "Tim?"

He reached out, offering to take my cold hand in his. I wasn't sure if I was coherent enough to blush, but his holoform skin was so pleasantly warm. He looked at our clasped hands and smiled just a little. "It is good to see you awake, Annabelle."

"To what do I owe the honor?"

"Pardon?"

"Don't you have better things to do than sit next to a conked-out human?"

Lifting his gaze to mine, his smile became more genuine. "We have all sat at your side at one time or another over the last nine days. You've undergone four surgeries now. You happened to wake up during my watch this time. "

"Nine days? Is that how long it's been?" I asked, kind of surprised.

"Yes. You have been gravely injured."

It suddenly occurred to me that maybe he could talk some sense into Ratchet. "I want to walk again."

Tim closed his eyes and hung his head. "We all wish that for you, Annabelle."

"But you can make it actually happen."

"Yes," he admitted.

When he didn't say anything else, I asked, "But…?"

He again lifted his gaze to mine. "But I lack your courage."

My head lolled back, and I got through half a laugh before my painful, partially-healed ribs told me that was a bad idea. My hip wasn't thrilled, either. I gingerly fingered my side and gave Tim a dirty look. "No fair joking when I'm already in stitches." Only then did I realize his expression was dead serious.

"I didn't mean to hurt you even more, but it is the truth."

"I'm too drugged for riddles. Tell me what you really mean."

He drew a deep breath. "The short answer, then, is that I'm getting squishier by the day. Perhaps it was inevitable. We don't share our technology, Annabelle, but to heal your hip, it would require us doing just that. Human soldiers have lost limbs, have lost their lives, while fighting Decepticons with us. Their amity was not enough to justify sharing our technology, but…" He leaned forward to kiss my hand and then rest it on my torso, leaving the sentence hanging.

But I was the Autobots' collective kid sister. No wonder Ratchet was getting so cranky.

Looking into the gaze of the Prime, I understood why he was so torn, too. It wasn't fair for me to put that kind of burden on him, but a sudden flash of anger filled me at the thought. What part of any of this was fair? Why should I have to make things fair for the grown-ups, when they had been the ones to be so unfair to me?

I closed my eyes, surprised by the resentment and how strong it was.

"Rest," Tim said. "Gather strength while I gather my courage."

I lifted my head, opening my mouth to tell him I wasn't tired, but he was already gone.

...

Mom and Dad were in my room when I came around next. "Hi Annabelle," Mom said, grinning. "It's good to see your eyes. You've been sleeping a ton."

"What day is it?" I wondered.

"June 29th," Dad answered.

I squinted at the ceiling, trying to remember what day the attack had been. Giving up, I asked, "How long have I been here?"

"Twelve days."

Almost two weeks now.

Mom squeezed my hand tightly. "You haven't had a surgery for three days. There will be more down the road, of course, but that's a good sign. They say we can begin some gentle physical therapy in a couple of days."

I nodded in agreement. "How about you?" She was still in a wheelchair. A wave of panic hit me that maybe she wouldn't ever be able to walk again either.

"I've already started my physical therapy. I'll set off the metal detector at airports now, but it's human tech that's holding my foot together. I'll be in a cast for another couple of weeks. If all goes well with that, I'll graduate to crutches. So I should be back on my feet in about six weeks."

I wiped away a traitorous tear, and Mom cupped my cheek with her hand. "I love you, sweetheart."

...

That day was a turning point - it was the last one that I needed to push the pain meds button. Without the influence of the drugs, I started staying awake for at least a half hour at a time several times a day. Mom and Dad hung out in my room a lot, when Mom wasn't in physical therapy, and the 'bot's popped in from time to time, too.

On Day 16 of my hospital stay, I woke up from an afternoon nap to see Mrs. Witwicky beside my bed. I sat up a little straighter in surprise.

"Hey," she softly said.

"Hi," I answered. "I didn't realize you and Samuel were still around."

"Yeah, we're still in town. Sam's with the kids right now, but I…" She looked down, seeming to struggle for words.

"Are you okay?"

A smile twitched on her lips. "You really are a human Autobot, aren't you." Looking up, she searched my eyes. "Are you okay?"

I swallowed hard. The way she asked told me she really meant it. Everyone else knew I wasn't okay and had tiptoed around that question. She was the first one to ask me point-blank, to give me a chance to say so. "I mean...well, I'm banged up pretty good, but I'm feeling a little better every day."

"But are you okay? I put you through hell, Annabelle."

I blinked a couple of times in confusion before I realized what she meant. She had said I should escape with Arcee, but Mom had insisted that Mrs. Witwicky go - at gunpoint.

Now she had survivor's guilt. Dad had been hit by that sometimes, especially after Graham died, and Mom had explained it to me. "I'm alive. I'm going to be just fine. Ratchet's going to let me walk again - Optimus is working on it. And it's not your fault."

"I took your place on Arcee's bike."

"It was your place, not mine. Mom was right - you're a Prime."

She bitterly laughed and shook her head. "No, I'm not. That's Sam."

"Well, you're a Prime by marriage. That's got to count for something, doesn't it?"

Grimacing, she said, "Yeah, by Autobot tradition, it makes me their femme commander. If I'd been the kind of Prime's mate they expect, I would have taken better care of you."

"Hey," I said, "you did the best you could with what we had. Even Optimus needed backup in that battle. You had to run. It was fate. You wouldn't have made it. I heard Shockwave…" His voice echoed in my mind, ordering the Seekers to kill everyone but Samuel. I shuddered at the memory, trying to shake it off and mostly succeeding. "He ordered the Seekers to not take prisoners. I heard him. The only reason we survived was because we're Lennoxes. There was a mech who wanted to…" I swallowed hard, unable to say the word "kill" when it would make the whole thing real again. "He wanted to hurt us in front of Ironhide as a vengeance thing. Shockwave literally would have...killed on sight any other human except Samuel or a Lennox."

"If you hate me…"

"I don't, Mrs. Witwicky," I interrupted her, more sure with each passing second that I was right on this. "It was fate. You had to survive, and Mom and I were fated to live, too. I don't hate you at all. It's not your fault...but I forgive you."

It was a guess that's why she'd come but they don't call it survivor's guilt for nothing. I felt a little forward saying it, but she sniffled and brushed away a tear or two, confirming my guess.

"Thank you, Annabelle. And after all you've been through, you've earned the right to call me by my first name."

That made me feel even more bold, so I asked, "Well what is it the Autobots call you? Femme commander?"

She again shook her head. "It's an honorary title, but I don't like it. I don't know the first thing about military strategies or commanding an army."

"Well I think you showed you're a good one. Just saying."

With a wistful smile, she said, "You're a good person, and we're lucky to have you." Taking a second to clear her throat, she added, "What can I do for you?"

"I can't really think of anything…"

Giving me a Mom look, she said, "As your femme commander, Firebrand, what can I do for you?"

If she was going to pull rank like that when she didn't even like the title, I decided to give in. "I'm going a little stir crazy stuck in bed like this. I mean, we've tried a wheelchair a few times, but they have to strap me in and we never go further than the hall. And it leaves me really sore. Anything to help distract me or a change of scenery or whatever."

"Are you okay with the kids visiting you?"

"Yeah, if the doctors okay it."

"We'll be back tonight, then."

She said it like it was a battle plan, and it made me smile. I'd bet she was more like a Cybertronian femme commander than she thought. "Deal."

A little after I finished dinner with Mom and Dad, the Witwickys showed up - all four of them. Daemon had colored me several pictures - of a mountain, an island, a volcano, the surface of the moon - and written "Feel Better" on the island. (I think it was supposed to be Diego Garcia.) He was very proud that he had written it all by his seven-year-old self. At four years old, Beatrice had just drawn a blob made of red-violet squiggles with blue dots for eyes, but she did mix it up by using different colors in the background for her red scribbles. I made a big deal of the drawings, and Mikaela asked if she could tape them to the walls as a change of scenery for me. We got permission from the nurse on staff, and the kids were bursting with pride.

Then Mrs. Witwicky, erm, Mikaela broke out some nail polish and offered to give me a mani-pedi. I picked out a lime green polish for my toes and a lemon yellow for my fingers. The kids told me all about their two weeks with their grandparents while Mikaela applied the base colors and then broke out a pretty lavender polish to use as an accent color on both my hands and feet. By that point, the kids were getting a little rambunctious, and Beatrice tried to climb up on my bed.

Samuel swooped in to snatch her up because Mikaela had her hands full of nail polish. "Sam, we're almost done here. Can you tell the kids a story or something?" she asked.

"How about a story about Cannon Man?" he asked them, and the kids jumped for joy. "I can't start until you're sitting on the couch," he said.

They scurried over and sat down, and I wondered what kind of parenting voodoo came with being a Prime. "A long time ago," he began, "in a galaxy far, far away, there was a very strange planet. Instead of dirt, it was made of metal. And instead of people, robots lived there."

"Metal World!" Beatrice exclaimed. Clearly she'd heard this story before, or one a lot like it.

"That's right!" Samuel said, grinning. "On Metal World, the robots could walk and talk and think and feel just like you and me. They had families and houses and everything. In fact, they even made cake, but it wasn't like our cake. Instead of chocolate, they used the goo you scrape off a car engine. And then they frost it with fingernail polish remover." He pointed at the bottle Mikaela was using for emphasis.

"Gross!" Daemon said, sticking his tongue out.

"Yeah, I think so, too," Samuel agreed. "They had poets and scientists, artists and inventors. And they even had mighty warriors to help protect them."

"Like Cannon Man," Daemon cut in. "And the Great Swordsman!"

"Yes," Mikaela said with a wink at me, "and don't forget Rifle Queen and her sisters - Blue Boom and Motorcycle Lady. Their girls were warriors, too."

I remembered the transforming toy cars I'd gotten for Christmas that one year and had to smile. When I was little and invited Skids and Mudflap to play with those toys with me, they'd told very similar stories, with some of the same character names, even. This was the same thing for Daemon and Beatrice. The stories let them get to know the 'bots without actually breaking the rules.

"Well one day some mean robots tried to take over a city. They said they'd kill anyone who didn't do what they said. Cannon Man and Blue Boom were there with some of their friends, and they weren't going to let the mean robots win. But the problem was there were a lot more mean robots than friendly ones. But do you think they gave up?"

"No!" Daemon and Beatrice chorused.

"That's right. Instead, they made a plan - a very smart and very sneaky plan. One night, they snuck in and stole the mean robots' food and gave it to the hungry robots of the city. Another night, they blew up all the mean robots' weapons so they couldn't hurt as many people. And they even used a scary thunderstorm to sneak in and steal the mean robots' first aid kits and all the medical supplies to give to Docbot. And each time they used a different disguise, so the mean robots thought that Cannon Man and Blue Boom had a lot more friends helping them than there were. With no food, no weapons, and no bandaids if they got hurt, the mean robots decided to leave. Cannon Man and Blue Boom saved the city!"

"Hooray!" Beatrice shouted.

"Tell us another one."

He obliged, starting in on one about Motorcycle Lady and Stripes (my names for the Arcee and Bumblebee toys) who were on a mission to spy on the mean robots. Mikaela winked at me and I chuckled, watching her work but listening with interest to Samuel's story. A mean robot shot at Motorcycle Lady, but Stripes gallantly jumped in front of her, saving her but getting hurt really badly, too. They were in the mean robot's land, and they were surrounded. Motorcycle Lady had to use a bunch of smart tricks to take out the mean robots, fix up Stripes, and keep them both safe. Mikaela finished with my nails just as Motorcycle Lady's sister and her friends showed up to help get them all back to the good robots' side of the fence.

At that point, Mikaela closed up the bottle of lavender nail polish and said, "Annabelle needs to rest, and so do you two. Can you say goodnight to her?"

"Aw!" Beatrice adorably protested, and Daemon said, "But Mom!"

"I'll tell you another story when your teeth are brushed and you're in your pajamas," Samuel said, and the kids reluctantly gave in. They both wished me goodnight, and Samuel paused long enough to shake my hand (and admire Mikaela's handiwork - she had an eye for detail). "She gave you purple hearts," he said, amused.

In a low voice, I asked, "Are those stories...authentic?"

He smiled up at me. "Mostly. I only tell them the chapters with happy endings. Feel better, Firebrand."

…

The next morning (and it was so nice to be able to keep track of the days again!), I woke up to Tim Furst at my bedside again.

"Hey," I said. "Forgive the morning breath."

He gave me a half-hearted smile. "There's nothing to forgive. I came to follow up on our last conversation."

"Oh?"

"Yes." He looked down, shoulders hunching slightly. It was really weird to see him sitting like that. He looked so defeated. "We have identified a suitable company with which to partner. The wheels can be in motion in as little as 24 hours, if this is still what you and your parents want."

"You don't sound very happy about it."

Lifting his gaze to mine, he said, "There are no good options here, Annabelle." He looked away again, and I could see how much he was struggling with this. "But Sam is convinced and I believe that we have made the best choice available to us. It is not without risk, but it will achieve the goal we seek."

"And that goal is making it possible for me to walk again?"

This time, the fire of the Prime glinted in his eyes when he met my gaze again. He didn't look young in this moment - there was too much sorrow, too much worry for that. "Yes."

Guilt slammed into me. "I'm sorry."

He stood, and I noticed that his hands were balled into loose fists that relaxed to his side as I watched. "So am I. Speak with your parents, and I'll visit again soon."

And then he was gone.

Mom and Dad joined me for breakfast just a few minutes after Tim Furst left, sitting on either side of my bed. We talked for a bit, but my conversation with Optimus sat like a weight on my chest the whole time. Eventually I confessed, "I think I might have accidentally tossed a grenade."

Dad tilted his head, his expression serious. "What do you mean?"

"You know how the Autobots don't share their technology? Well Optimus was here a few days ago and he said that the only way to let me walk again was to let humans have access to Cybertronian tech. I understand why they don't share it, but then this morning he came back again and said that they'd do it for me."

"That's great news!" Mom said.

What if they do and it goes horribly wrong?"

"Wrong how?" Dad asked.

"Well, what if I'm the one responsible for the zombie apocalypse or something?"

Mom laughed, but Dad's eyes narrowed slightly. It kind of creeped me out - it was like he was seeing right into me.

"You don't need to worry about that, Annabelle," Mom said, brushing a strand of hair away from my face. "Zombies aren't real, and even if they were, they wouldn't stand a chance against Autobots."

"Annabelle," Dad softly said, "it's not the end of the world if you need to use a wheelchair, for the record. But I thought you wanted to walk again."

"I do. It's just…" I didn't know how to explain my unease with the whole idea. "I'm scared that the price of a normal life for me might be too high."

"But sweetheart…" Mom trailed off when Dad reached across me to catch Mom's hand.

To me, he said, "You're catastrophizing."

Darn him and his college degree in psychology. "In English?"

He sighed and then gave me a wry smile. "You've been traumatized. It's not just your body that's been injured. Now that your body is starting to heal, your subconscious mind is going to have a whole lot of opinions about what went wrong, how it went wrong, and what you can do to avoid being injured again. Unfortunately, the human subconscious isn't exactly logical. Catastrophizing means that your subconscious makes you think a decision will always lead to the worst possible outcome."

I dropped my head back onto the pillow and closed my eyes. "Don't tell me it's not logical to be worried. For Primus' sake - Optimus was agonizing over it!"

"I didn't...Look, all I'm saying is that Optimus isn't worried about zombies. And having some lingering cognitive effects after all you've been through is perfectly reasonable and normal. The Autobots broke more regs than I care to think about to ensure your body has the best chance possible to heal - whatever that ends up looking like. We need to take care of your mind, too."

Lifting my head again, I burst out, "I'm not crazy, Dad!"

"You're not," he gently agreed. "You're human. Trained, battle-hardened soldiers would be screened for trauma-related disorders after being captured by the enemy and tortured. Letting you walk again isn't going to do you much good if your mind is still hurting." He took both my hands in his, his voice getting rough. "I was afraid I'd lost you. I want to see you live your life to the fullest, Annabelle, and that means taking care of your mind every bit as much as your body, and maybe even more so."

Angry tears welled up in my eyes, and I closed them, tugging my hands free from my dad's and crossing my arms. "I think I'm done with visitors for now."

"Annabelle…" Mom said, but again she trailed off. A few heartbeats later, she kissed my brow. "I'll be in the lobby, when you're ready for visitors again. Text me, and I'll be here quicker than a holoform."

I opened my eyes and gave her a half-hearted smile. "Thanks, Mom."

Once they were gone, I started idly surfing the web on my phone, looking for some kind of distraction. Not ten minutes later, though, Ratchet's holoform popped into existence at the foot of my bed. My heart leaped to my throat, and I grumbled, "Try knocking next time."

"My apologies, Firebrand."

Setting aside my phone, I added, "And if you're here to tell me I'm crazy because of the zombie thing, I know they aren't real."

He squinted at me slightly in confusion, and I realized I'd just put my foot in it. Mom and Dad hadn't blabbed, but I just had. "Never mind," I muttered. "What did you need, Ratchet?"

He came to sit beside my bed. "Optimus and I have been working on his half-baked idea for helping you."

My eyebrows rose in surprise. "Does it include zombies?"

"Why are you going on about zombies? No, this is serious, Firebrand."

I sighed and made an effort to actually focus. "Fine. What exactly is his crazy idea? He told me he was afraid to share your medical tech with us but that he had worked up the courage to actually do it."

Ratchet nodded in agreement. "As I said before, I'm an Autobot medic and swapping parts is what I do. My mistake was in planning to swap in Cybertronian parts. You are human, so I've spent the last several days researching the possibility of swapping in human parts."

"A transplant?"

"I initially considered that, but too much bone has been damaged or destroyed. We're proposing to clone the parts you need."

"Clone?"

"Cybertronian physicians have used it before on other, non-sentient organic species. There would be no risk of rejection or compromising your immune system that way, and you'd still be able to walk again sooner. In addition to your genetic material, I would need access to certain earth-made substances, however. And if we involved human research labs that are already working with cloning, I could make the necessary parts for you all the more quickly."

"How quickly?"

"Maybe as little as a month."

I leaned back, stunned for a moment. It sounded almost like magic. There had to be a catch. It couldn't be that easy, could it? "What are the risks?"

He shrugged. "Minimal. I've never performed the procedure personally, but I have all the documentation on how it's done. We should test it first on animal subjects, of course, but I am confident we will be able to do this for you."

"No - I mean, thank you - but what I'm trying to ask is why is Optimus freaked out about sharing this?"

His gaze dropped. "He has always been against sharing any of our technology. By sharing even rudimentary aspects of cloning through your treatment, we could exacerbate existing problems on your world or create whole new ones." Looking up at me, he said, "Instead of just improving the quality of life, it could extend life, perhaps indefinitely. Knowing how great the inequality already is between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' in your world, this could be put to devastating uses. Dictators who live for centuries."

Oh. Worse than zombies, then. "Can't you just do it yourself? I mean, do you have to share it?"

"If we wanted to protect you - and we do - we would have to make sure there are other, more productive ways to steal this technology than kidnapping and dissecting you."

I remembered again Stockade, begging for permission to kill me, and I felt my lips go numb with fear.

"I apologize for being so blunt, but you asked, Firebrand."

"I did." And now my palms were sweaty.

"I will speak to your parents too, of course, but I wanted to first find out what you thought, since it's your body we're trying to heal."

I wanted to walk again. I wanted to be me again. But what if Ratchet was right? What if I just ended up torn apart anyway - by humans this time instead of Decepticons? My heart was racing, and my ribs started to ache more as my breath quickened.

What the slag? "I can't…"

Ratchet tilted his head slightly. "Are you in pain?"

"I can't...I can't catch my breath."

After a few seconds, he said, "Your father thinks it's a psychosomatic reaction."

"I'm not psycho!"

"You've helped enough, Ratchet," Dad said from the doorway.

"He's trying to fix me!" I shouted at my dad, wincing at the pain in my ribs and hip. "At least he cares about me!"

Something softened in his expression. "Yes, he does care. All the Autobots do." He carefully inched closer to my bed and Ratchet stood, giving him the seat beside me. "Are your lips tingling?"

"Yeah," I gasped out.

"Breathe with me, sweetheart. In and out. In and out. In with me, out with me. In with me, out with me. In, nice and slow. Out, nice and slow." His voice was soft, soothing. Slowly - embarrassingly so - he talked me down from whatever the Pit that was. It was exhausting.

Ratchet watched without comment until I was so relaxed that I yawned. "I will notify Dr. Sarkisian that her services will be needed upon our return to base."

"Who's Dr. Sarkisian?" I sleepily asked my dad when Ratchet's holoform flickered out of existence.

"The real NEST shrink. My bachelor's degree was in Psychology, but she's the one who's actually qualified to help someone work through trauma. And she's helped a LOT of my men over the years." His hand gently brushed over my forehead. "Now rest, sweetheart. You still have a lot of healing to do."