Warning, mentions of child abuse!

Nya stirred. She grumbled lightly as she rolled onto her side. Her eyes fluttered opened. She looked around confused, before shutting her eyes and sighing deeply. She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Taking a deep breath, she focused on her surroundings. Both inward and outward.

Nothing felt out of place. No nausea. No throbbing headache. She didn't even feel the need to use the restroom, or to get a sip of water. There was only the slight pinching of the shrapnel stuck inside of her and that wasn't out of her normal. The bed, or layers of tattered blankets and old straw, underneath her was as comfortable as it was going to get, and she could usually sleep on it. So, it must have been something outside of herself that had woken her up.

Nya was a very heavy sleeper, and only woke up for three reasons. One, if her internal clock woke her up; after her time at many flite bases, she had developed a strong habit of always waking up after 8 hours of rest. Two, someone had shaken her awake: in rare instances she needed to be woken up by one of her crewmates, though it only happened twice. Three, something else had woken her up.

It was a particular quirk of hers. Whenever something was wrong, she usually woke up, and couldn't go back to sleep until whatever problem that woke her was solved. Sometimes, she'd even wake up in the middle of solving the issue. One of the more memorable moments of this occurrence, was the night after her fiancé's surgery to fix his broken nose. She had woken up with her arm outstretched and her hand gripping the collar of his pajama shirt, stopping him from rolling off the bed. If she hadn't somehow done that than he would have most likely fell face first onto the floor. Pretty much undoing all of the work the doctors had already done on him, and would most likely require another surgery to fix it again. She saved his nose and their bank accounts that night.

A single tear slipped from her eye and down her cheek. She took a deep breath and wiped it away with her hand. No, point in crying over the past right now. Not with work to do. Which, now begged the question…

What woke her?

She slowly sat up and looked at her surroundings. It was the same small attic space that she had slept in for the last two years. Not even the dust seemed out of place. A quick squeak of metal rubbing against metal rang from below. Did a raccoon sneak in?

Nya crept up to the edge of the attic bedroom's floor. She gazed down at the barn's ground floor. The normal old metal working equipment. The scrap metal that she had for no apparent reason. The small homemade pottery table. Her tools, and the…alien. Right. She had nearly forgot about her new roommate.

Starscream, had been a welcomed surprise for her. It was nice having someone to talk to other then the people she would see at the local market once a week. She honestly had no idea what she was doing when she found him crashed in her yard, but it was a challenge and she needed a good challenge. Patching up his external wounds was the easy part. She had plenty of sheet metal, and a welder, that while old was still in working condition. She even went so far as to patch up the individual tubes that were leaking. Though, what she had been stopping from leaking, that's what puzzled her.

Energon. Such a funny name, it was fuel source so the first part of the name made sense. She guessed that then ending was just something to make it sound cool. The bright blue glowing liquid, was very intriguing to her. Thankfully, after he regained consciousness, Starscream was quite eager to explain everything he knew about the subject. Not that she minded, it only made her more fascinated with this scientist turned commander turned rogue.

She had many crazy theories that racked her brain before he woke up. Her top two at the time, was she was dreaming, or that she had stumbled upon a Russian super mech suit. Though she did have to throw the mech suit idea out after searching and not finding a pilot; much to her relief and slight disappointment. Of course, once he woke up those were all tossed out the window. She had mentally smacked her face for not thinking of aliens first.

She continued to gaze at the large mechanical alien, with pure unrivaled curiosity. Until she saw him twitch. His head suddenly jerked to the side, as if he was trying to avoid something trying to hit him. A clear grimace was one his face, and a small squeak of fear escape from him. Nya, knew that she didn't know everything about Cybertronians, but she knew a nightmare when she saw one.

She slipped down the ladder to the ground floor, and continued to proceed forward. Though she made her steps quiet, and kept her eyes on his twitching claws readying herself to duck if necessary. She crept up toward his wings, knowing how sensitive they were. Very gently, she traced her figures over a wing's edge. She could see the change almost immediately. His wings stiffened, and the barn was lit the glow of his bright red eyes. She quickly hit the floor, narrowly dodging the fast-swiping claws. Panicked breaths quickly filled her ears.

"Whoa, whoa, tiger," she said, in a soothing tone, "It's just me."

Starscream's head jerked towards the sounds of her voice; his eyes wide. But once recognition set in, he eased back on to the tarps he was on, pressing his clawed hands over his face. A long heavy groan escaped from him. Nya could still see how his body raddled with fearful breaths, and noticed how he seemed to be trying to make himself smaller.

"Yeah, you're still here. You're safe," Nya said, carefully coming closer to him.

"I nearly just slapped you away," Starscream grumbled.

"You were panicking, it's understandable. Besides, I once pulled a knife on somebody who woke me up from a nightmare," She gently positioned herself in the crook of his neck and shoulder.

Starscream's talons moved from his face at the sudden feeling on where Nya had placed herself. She could see the subtle shock in his ruby red eyes, as he turned to look at her. It was either shock of how calm she was or it was that he was still reeling from the nightmare. He turned away from her.

"I'm sorry," She mumbled.

"Why are you apologizing? I'm the one who nearly sliced your head off," he murmured.

"Because, I woke you up."

He turned back to her, "Why did you?"

"You were clearly having some kind of nightmare. I couldn't just let you suffer."

She could tell from his change in expression that he wasn't expecting that answer.

"Was it some kind of flashback of something?" Nya carefully pried.

Starscream's face twisted with something that looked like annoyance and his gaze returned to the ceiling, "If it was, it isn't your concern."

"Well, if it was a flashback, then I would ask if you would want to talk about it."

"Why would volunteer for that?" he paused before quickly adding, "If it was."

"Because, it sometimes makes it easier."

"And how would you know?"

"Personal experience."

Nya could feel the surprise radiated off of him as his body suddenly tensed and his eyes subtly widened. But that emotion and expression quickly melted away from him, and was slowly replaced by a pained and tired look. She knew that look, he was remembering it, whatever it was.

"You know, I used to get nightmares too," she started, pretending not to notice Starscream's interest in her words, "I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming. Thinking there were monsters in my closet."

"How unfortunate for you," he said flatly.

"It was. Waking up in the middle of the night. Scared of something, that most of the time, I couldn't remember what it was I was so frightened of. Many nights I couldn't get myself to sleep again, so I would always be exhausted when it was time to participate in society. And that, lead to me preforming poorly; making mistakes. It was awful, but you know what was worse? Seeing that everyone else didn't have my problems.

"Sometimes it felt like I was drowning, and no matter what I did, I couldn't breathe. I would see other people be able to shake their issues off and forget they ever happened. I would see them and felt like I was inferior. I would constantly ask, 'why couldn't I?'. Why couldn't I get over it? Why couldn't I be like them? Why couldn't I be normal? I would try to put on the brave face, and pretend I was okay, but I was still dying on the inside. I tried to find something that eased the pain, something that gave me control. I thought I found it, but that relief it was temporary, and I would do anything to feel it again. Eventually it slowly tore me apart."

"Why are you telling me this?" Starscream turned to her, clearly done with her talking.

"Because you need to hear it," she answered, "What is it you're after Starscream? What's your relief?"

"What everyone is after, power, to be the ruler of cybertron. I used to dream of being named the next prime, and leading cybertron into a second golden age. And I will achieve that. To prove to everyone that…"

"That you're not a failure?" she raised one of her brows.

"Well, I…"

"Are you trying to prove that to everyone, or to yourself?"

"What are you…?"

"Which is it?"

Starscream went silent. His gaze became lost in thought. Clearly deeply contemplating a question he never asked himself.

"Let me ask you something Starscream," Nya said drawing his attention, "When you were dreaming of being the next prime, what were you doing? What was your life like?"

"Didn't I tell you about this? I was working as an energon seeker scientist."

"You did, but now I have more questions. What was it like working that job?"

"Well, it was…comfortable enough. I had power, respect. During the days I would either work on certain experiments, or be assigned to a mission."

"What kind of missions?"

"Well, sometimes if the Prime requested, we would act as bodyguards, but it was mostly exploration missions too far away planets."

"What did you do in your free time?"

"Train, or go flying mostly, but sometimes we would travel to Iacon and go to Macadam's for a drink."

"Any friends or family?"

"I had my trine."

"Trine?"

"I think the closest relationship that you humans have to it, is siblinghood."

"Ah, So, brothers or sisters? Or, did you have one of each?"

"Brothers. Their names were Skywarp and Thundercracker, they would drive me crazy sometimes. I remember one time; I was working a long shift in the laboratory, and I must have dozed off at some point. Skywarp woke me up with his panicked screams. I had never run so fast to our quarters" he smiled to himself, "When I got there Skywarp had flip all the berths to barricade himself in a corner of the room, still screaming his helm off. Whom was he barricading himself from? Thundercracker.

"Apparently 'Warp had a health check that day and he had a minor rust infection. Thundercracker was trying give Skywarp his medication, when he freaked out. When I got there, he was screaming about Thundercracker trying to melt him with acid."

Nya was trying not to laugh, "So, what did you do?"

"Well, eventually I had to hold Skywarp down while Thundercracker administered his treatment. 'Warp didn't stop screeching through the whole thing."

Nya burst out laughing, "Wow, was he kid when this happened?"

"Skywarp? No, he was fully grown. Physically at least, I'm sure if he was mentally."

"Well, some people are just like that. Physically they're adult but they still got the heart of a kid," she smiled and tilled her head to the side, "Were you happy?"

"What…?"

"Were you happy there, as scientist, with your trine?"

"Of course, I was! What kind question is that?"

"Were you content with what you had?"

"Yes."

"Then what happened?"

"What?"

"What made you desire power? What hurt you?"

"Well…I suppose things changed when Megatron made he appearance."

"What happened?"

"He stormed our laboratories. We were assigned to study a rare variant of energon that we label dark energon. He took the ones who weren't trained in combat and held them hostage. Most of the seekers on board didn't survive. That was when I joined the Decepticons. This was my chance to claim the power that I deserved. I worked hard and rose through the ranks, until I was his second. I only had to get rid of Megatron, and I would've succeeded.

"I would've made a better leader then him, but know one saw it. For three years, I lead the decepticons as we sat waiting, for their 'true' leader to return. I stocked up our resources. I ran missions. I planned our tactics. I even took a page out of you human's democracy and gave the crew the chance to vote in certain cases. Yet, once Megatron walked back into the picture, anything I did was forgotten! And why did he leave? To chase a fragging rock long thought lost to time! Then he jammed the thing straight into his spark, which wasn't something that we even considered when we had the stuff for testing! It could've killed him, yet that doesn't matter because it didn't! He's psychotic, yet everyone still follows his every whim!"

"They follow him because he's their hero Starscream."

"Hero?! How in the fragging universe could he be their hero? The choices best for the decepticons go completely over his helm! All he cares about was finding a way to end Optimus!"

"Do you know what an underdog story is Starscream?"

"I have a feeling you're going to tell me."

"An underdog story is about a normal person rising above what seemed to be an impossible power. What you told me about how the decepticons started, it could count. Megatron was a miner, a nobody, who gained a following, and took down a seemly unstoppable power, the high council. Picture perfect underdog story, and people love underdog stories. They loved them because they can see themselves in the underdog."

"Underdog, or not. He's now a complete buffoon," Starscream spat venomously.

"He beat you," Nya murmured, coming to the conclusion that she didn't want.

Starscream froze, "He, didn't…"

"Don't you lie. You have welds on you, that span from recently to at least a few years ago, some older. We may be different species, Starscream, but I know what scars look like."

Starscream turned his head away from her, scared to meet her gaze.

"Starscream, look at me," she paused waiting for him to respond, "Please, I need you to see something."

Nya watched as he hesitantly turned back to her. She flashed a warm yet sad smile, before twisting herself, turning her back towards him. Her fingers gingerly lifted up the rim of her shirt, revealing a number of small scars that were etched into the flesh of her back. The small whitish raised patches were the phantoms of past wounds. Wounds given to her by someone she should have been able to trust.

She could feel Starscream's surprise once more. She let her shirt fall, covering the scars once more, and turned back to his startled face.

"Who did…?" He queried.

"It was my mother," she started before taking a shaky breath, "You know what that is right?"

"I understand that humans usually are raised in certain units. Two adults care for the young, providing substance and educational resources. I am not aware of the details of how these units come to be. But I do know that the role of 'mother' is commonly held by an adult female in these units."

"Well, you got the basics right. But not all families work that way. To make a long story short, my mother hated me. I wasn't a planned nor wanted child. She'd scream at me, insult me, maybe lash out at me once or twice. If that's all I had to deal with then that was a good day. Sometimes she'd bring 'guy friends' over and well…" she cleared her throat, "It all came to ahead one night when I was four, I had caught the flu and was feeling awful. I went down stairs to ask for some medicine, and she had been drinking. It ended with her breaking the wine bottle on my back. The neighbors had heard the crashing and the screaming. They found me on the kitchen floor, bleeding and covered in glass. The authorities were called, and they took me away.

"I had nightmares of her for years. Sometimes, I would see her standing above my bed with a bottle in her hand ready to hit me again. Other times she'd be tying me down, and then opened the door for someone to walk through. I'd always wake up before anything else could happen, though. There are probably other dreams, but I can't remember them," Nya wiped a stray tear off her cheek.

"How did you…?"

"Get over it? Well, my Daddy was a big part of that. After I was taken away, my father was contacted and he took me in."

"You'd think he would get his ward out of that situation, before it escalated to that degree."

"He didn't know about me Starscream. My mother never even brothered to tell him about me. Once he was told what happened to me, he felt so guilty. He wouldn't stop apologizing for leaving me alone with her. Almost all of his family disowned him for keeping a child he had out of wedlock, but he didn't care, he had me to take care of."

"He…sounds like a man of honor."

"Yeah, he was. Though I doubt he would believe that, he'd just say he did what he thought was right. He used to stay up, let me cry into his shoulder at night after I woke up screaming from a nightmare. Sometimes, he would tell me stories. My favorites were always about neverland."

"Neverland?"

"It's a made-up magical place full of pixies, mermaids, and lost boys."

"Pixies?"

"Oh, wait you probably have never heard of them. Pixies are tiny humans with wings on their backs, and Mermaids are humans with fish tales instead of legs."

"I said it once and I'll say it again, I will never truly understand you humans. And what of the Lost boys?"

"Lost boys are basically orphans, who don't have any other home. After an amount certain time, someone comes and takes them to Neverland. A place with no worries, no troubles, and you never have to grow up. He'd used to tell me that he had been one the lost boys, but he left neverland so he could grow up and be my dad."

Starscream rolled his eyes, "Sparkling tales."

"Hey, those, 'sparkling tales' are the only reason that I could get a good night sleep during elementary, and middle school."

"Regardless, I doubt that his stories were the thing that made you forget the horrors of your female parental unit."

"You right, it wasn't the only thing, but it's the one I remember most clearly. He paid for all of my schooling, packed my lunches, threatened every boy who dated me with a handgun if I came home heartbroken…"

"Taught you about jets…"

"Yeah, he did do that too," her brow creased, "Which means, Dad kind of saved your life."

Starscream was taken a back, "What?"

"Well, if he never taught me about the inner workings of a fighter jet then I wouldn't have known how to repair you."

"Well…if that is the situation, then thank him for me next you meet."

Nya felt her breath hitch, "I wish I could do that Screamer. I'm afraid that he died."

Starscream stayed silent unsure about what to do, or say next.

"It was leukemia that took him. We got the diagnosis when he was in the late stages. He needed a bone merrow transplant, I volunteered right away, but I wasn't a match. We didn't have any contact with our blood family, so we were put on a doner list, but we couldn't find a match in time," tears started to slip down her face.

Starscream couldn't comprehend what was happening in front of him. He'd had never seen a human shed lubricant before. Her fleshy faceplate was blank, but the sorrow was evident in her optics. He never really looked at organic optics. The only humans that he really had contact with was the Autobot's allies, and MECH, but even then, he never really looked at their optics.

Organic optics were bizarre to say the least. A circle of ridged color, surrounded by white and with a black dot in the center, that seemed to changed its size. They reflected and sparkled, rather than produced their own light like cybertronian optics did. Nya's seemed to match one of most common colors on her home planet, a deep green, just like the forest that surrounded them. Human tears were clear rather than the oily gold that he was used to. The clear tears made her eyes sparkle even more, and in the hot red glow of his own optics the deep green had taken on the appearance of a muddy brown.

Why was she leaking? There was no need to show such an emotional reaction. Sure, her father was gone but she had said that it was long since he went offline. There was no more need for tears. But then he remembered that Nya was human. Humans forged emotional bonds that lasted lifetimes, and once those bonds were broken, it usually ended in emotional torment. He always had a hard time understanding that part of humanity. How they could morn and care about one another so strongly yet be able to kill each other every few decades without a glance.

He watched as the fibers on her helm came loose from the messy braid they were styled in and fell in front of her face as she wiped her optics. She was trying to compose herself. Starscream careful reached a claw towards her and pulled the stray fibers back with his digit's tip.

A small sad smiled spread across her fleshy faceplate, as her tears seemed to finally come to a stop, "Thanks," she murmured.

"Well, I…couldn't let your…uh…fibers get in the way…of…uh…your display," he stuttered.

"Aww, you're so sweet," Nya teased.

No, he wasn't, not compared to her. She had gotten up in the middle of her recharge cycle, in order to help him get over a nightmare. Shared some of the dark parts of her past, in order to comfort him. And before all this she had saved his life.

"No, no I'm not sweet."

"Oh, come on Starscream. I was just teasing. I'm sorry if I offended you."

"No, Nya, I'm not sweet. I've done things that aren't sweet."

"Like?"

"I've killed bots Nya."

"Oh, wow. Are you trying to scare me? You not the only one whose worked in the military here Scream. I'm not all that innocent either," she said her voice going cold.

Starscream felt his optics widen. He honestly never made that connection. He should have realized that as a human seeker, Nya would've been taught to fire upon enemy fliers, and well…casualties happened. They weren't all that different he was coming to realize. They were both ambitious, stubborn as pit, and had been abandoned by their respected people. The only major difference, other than the obvious, was that she could still be happy with herself. He didn't know how, she just could.

Nya sighed, "So, anyone you regret taking?"

"Not really, though, one of my more recent ones, has been bothersome."

"Do they haunt you when you sleep?"

"Oh, no. They just had been part of a very tightly knit group and one of them wants to slice my helm off," he paused, "Do you see any when you recharge?" he asked quietly.

"Only the ones that I know the faces of. The others get to me in different ways."

Starscream watched her throat twitch, guessing she was swallowing. His gaze adverted to the other side of the barn, "Do you regret what you did?"

"Every one of them," she took a deep vent, "So, you feeling better?"

"What?"

"You're not shaking anymore."

Starscream froze. Had he been shaking? She had seen his panic. Suddenly the former seeker commander felt very embarrassed, and for the first-time a while, self-conscious.

"Uh… I'm sorry that I…uh woke you…" Starscream, said in desperate attempt to fill the awkward silence.

"Don't worry about it."

A/N:

Okay so this one, if you couldn't figure it out, takes place before Nya was kidnapped and still living in the barn.

The rust story was inspired by this- brainenuggets/art/TFP-Rust-507436933

It's a great read, so please go support the author.