Hey, I know it's been awhile since I update. But I've spent my first week out of school getting this chapter and the third chapter of Tracks: the beginning ready for you guys so enjoy!

The femme stared at the ceiling of her new room. It felt like forever since she last had a berth and a room to call her own. Well as close to her own as she's going to get on Earth. She had to have been up for several hours now since her doorwings were beginning to ache. She could have checked her chronometer for the time, but honestly she didn't care enough to actually do it.

How long had it been since everything felt so, so still? It was strange, disconcerting. Among the Decepticons it was rarely this quiet. Even when she was little and Barricade would hold her there was noise. Granted, most of the time it was just his spark, but it was still noise. Now, it was just silence and she hated it.

She moved to sit on the edge of the berth. She had to leave the room. It was… it was just cramped. The air too stale, not enough room, something, everything was wrong here. She stood and hurried out the door. However, once out she didn't know what to do with herself. What could she do? Prowl insisted she wasn't to wander the base by herself. He would have to deal with it later she didn't feel like looking for him.

She started to wander the halls aimlessly. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to distract her from the walls that were slowly closing in.

Outside. She needed to get outside. Away from the base, away from the Autobots, away from these disgusting little life-forms that infested the planet. She hurried through halls of the main base until she found herself at the entrance.

Stepping out into the dark of the early morning she noticed that it would be some time before dawn arrived. Perfect. She shuttered her optics and vented deeply. It had been a long time since she felt claustrophobic and it was never pleasant. It was …humiliating. It was ridiculous that after all she had done, she let herself be overwhelmed by, by nothing. But then again that was her problem. There was nothing here. No purpose, no place, no well friends was never the best word to describe her peers. There weren't even any symbiotes to tease. She didn't have the calming presence of Soundwave and more importantly no Barricade.

Prowl and Barricade were by essence the same mech and looked similar enough, but they didn't act the same. They both were standoffish, strategic thinkers, beyond that they were two different people.

Why was she here? -Because I have nowhere else to go.-

She could have stayed on the Nemesis. No, she was wise to leave. Megatron knew how to hold a grudge and after Soundwave, subtle as he was, hinted at the fate of traitors and beings associated with them, she knew it was too dangerous to stay.

The dawn was still some time away. It was nice to be away from everybody. She was getting tired of the smell of the base. It didn't smell bad, but it was a lingering odor that was just there like the smell of a nitrogen ocean, or energon seeping from the dead and wounded.

How long had it been since she left the Nemesis? She spent several months wandering until she ran into the hunters. That was when she first saw the yellow scout, Bumblebee.

"Bumblebee" she said out loud, feeling the syllables in her mouth. Such a strange name. And yet she almost wanted to say it again, wanted to feel her mouth move to form the syllables. Stupid. She was letting herself get carried away. The yellow mech was different though. He was the only one who wouldn't let her be. He fell into word traps easily and didn't seem to realize when she was mocking him. He just had this sense of innocence around him.

It was hard to find innocent things among battle hardened warriors. The hatchlings were innocent, while they were young. She quietly enjoyed their openness. She got many laughs from the comments or questions they'd blurt out and the caretakers' awkward reaction. Out of the mouths of babes, the humans say. She had spent some time with them. The ones who showed high intelligence and great agility were sent to Black ops. They were given a mentor and trained. She watched many of the hatchlings trained, but had only mentored two herself. Barricade had helped with that.

Now that she thought about it, when was there a time in her life that Barricade was not there? Watching, helping, teaching, even punishing. It didn't matter now because he wasn't here, Prowl had replaced him. No, Prowl was first, Barricade came second. It was still difficult to accept. Now she was on her own. She had been for awhile.

How long had it been since she left the nemesis? It couldn't have been six months, could it? No, she didn't think so. It was most likely close to that, but not there.

The dawn was finally coming on. She wasn't fond of this planet, but she had never seen something like the soft light of the Earth's sun rising. She had once been to a solar system that held three suns once. However, she never made planet fall. Seeing the suns as the giant stars they were and watching them rise were two different things. Funny how that was.

Her doorwings twitched when they picked up the EM field of an Autobot. She kept her back to the entrance as she continued to watch the sky. None of them would attack her and if they were foolish enough to try she could easily handle them.

"Nice out here, isn't it?" Jazz's smooth voice floated from the entrance. The femme flicked her wings in annoyance. She didn't have anything to say to this mech. She supposed she should act civil to him, but really what was the point? Right now she wanted to be away from everyone as she put herself together. Not be stuck with the annoying midget.

"What do you want?" the femme snapped. Out of all the worthless bots in this place, this one had to come and ruin the mood for her?

"You're not supposed to be out here by yourself." Jazz replied.

She growled. "So what? It's not like there's anything to do inside."

"You were doing something out here? It looked like you were staring out into space from my viewpoint."

"Shut up." The femme said in an attempt to disengage the mech. What was wrong with this mech? Didn't he have better things to do than to harass her all morning? If only she could wipe the floor with him. Maybe he'd learn to mind his business then. Wait. Knocking around this sorry scrap heap, that wasn't a bad idea. Not bad at all. "Is there a training room in the base?"

An optic ridge raised itself behind the dark visor. "Why yes there is. Feel like lettin' loose a bit?"

"You could say that." The femme replied with a dangerous smirk. "I'll need a partner though."

A laugh that matched the violent intentions of the femme came from the silver saboteur. "Let's go."

Prowl hurried to the medbay as fast as his legs could carry him. It was suffice to say that having Ratchet comm. him to say that he had two minutes to retrieve his bondmate and bastard offspring before he turned them into scrap was not a pleasant way to start the morning.

He should have seen this coming. He knew the femme wasn't comfortable here and with Jazz's…insecurities, of course they would clash. To put each other in the medbay though, was just too far to be ignored.

Prowl stopped outside the doors to Ratchet's lair. With an intake of air to steady himself Prowl stepped through. Upon entering, his optics found the femme lying on a berth to the left. She was sitting on the edge of the berth, but her optics were dim.

Prowl went to her as swiftly as he dared. She didn't move. Not even when he was standing two feet away from her. Prowl chirred a note of concern. That got her attention. The femme looked up at him with an unfocussed gleam in her optics. "What do you want?"

"Are you all right?" The tactician asked.

The femme shrugged. "Your slagger of a medic has me doped up on painkillers right now. I'd swear I was buzzed if I wasn't sitting in here."

Prowl fought back the urge to flick his wings in annoyance. He remembered Barricade had a hell of a time keeping high grade away from his offspring after Deadlock introduced her to it. It was one of the reasons he hated the mech. Although he couldn't entirely blame that pit-spawn for her more unsatisfactory habits. According to the memories, she had picked up a few other addictions while working on her undercover mission to get close to Senator Ratbat to murder him. Prowl shuddered as his cortex brought up several memory files on what Barricade had to do to the femme to break her of all the unsavory habits.

"How did this happen?" Prowl asked, trying to verbally reach the femme.

She gave a grunt and a shrug. "I got bored. He was around and offered to help. We got…carried away."

"Carried away?" Prowl parroted back.

"That's what I said."

"Carried away, how can you say you got carried away?" Prowl asked, worry, desperation, frustration, spark ache, apparent in his tone. "It looks like you tried to kill each other. The humans getting off of the night shift had to alert Prime about the fight in the training room. It took Ironhide several warning shots to get you to separate from each other. You're sitting here, with repaired doorwings, foot, arms and an optic and you're telling me its cause you got carried away!" Prowl's voice had risen in intensity with each sentence. The femme visibly flinched from the yell Prowl's voice had turned into at the last comment. It sounded like a reprimand. From Barricade.

"I'm… I'm sorry, it was not my intent to worry you. I only meant to relieve some of my frustration and Jazz was just there."

Prowl rubbed at his faceplate. "I know. I know. I've sent for Bumblebee so he may watch you. I need to talk with Jazz. Will you be alright?"

"Perfectly fine." The femme replied as she hopped off the berth and limped to the door. Prowl thought about calling her back, but really what was the point? She wouldn't listen anyway. Instead it was time to have a certain conversation with his bondmate.

The femme had managed to limp out into the hallway. Now there was deciding where to go. It's not like she had many options on base and leaving base wasn't even a choice. True, she had been considering it before Prowl came in, but in reality she wouldn't last long. The only safe place in this damned base was her quarters. The room she fled from just hours ago.

As she walked to her room, she listened to the echo of her footsteps. It was a soothing pattern. It almost reminded her of when she was a sparkling and Soundwave would tap a rhythm to ease her when Barricade would go away. Then the echo changed. The femme stopped near a corner to listen. Someone was in the hallway walking in her direction. -Shit.-

Bumblebee hurried to the medbay after receiving the summons from Prowl. Already the stories of the fight between Jazz and the ex-Con were going through the base. The knowledge chilled him. He had known Jazz for most of his life and relied on him as a friend and for guidance. However, it disturbed Bee that he was mostly concerned for the femme's welfare. After hiding for months on Earth and being fuelled with prisoners' rations, there was no way she could be in peak physical condition. Granted, Jazz probably wasn't his best either with being brought back to life and helping Prowl deal with his issues, but he was older and more experienced.

Bumblebee turned the corner and there she was in the middle of the hall. Her red gaze fixed on him. Bumblebee stopped. They were face to face with only a few inches separating them. The scout felt the burn in his spark and a chill run down his spinal strut again. Why did this happen around the femme? Granted, with her red optics, clean white armor, and fairly large doorwings, she was attractive. Very attractive. -Focus Bee. Focus.-

"Are you, Are you okay?" Bumblebee forced out, trying to hide his arousal.

The femme cocked her head. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I heard about what happened between you and Jazz."

"Does everyone already know about it?" the femme asked. Bumblebee noted that there was no edge or sarcasm in her voice. She almost seemed serene. Looking closer, Bee could see that her optics were slightly glazed. How much painkiller was she on?

"Pretty much." Bumblebee answered, deciding the truthful answer would be the best one. "Prowl sent me to watch you while he talked with Jazz.

The femme nodded at his words. Her mind seemed to be getting fuzzy. Those painkillers the medic gave her were topnotch stuff. She thought she was high in the medbay, but now it was almost like she was cloud nine. They were nothing compared to the stimulants she was into back on Cybertron, but still for medicine this was nice.

"I want to go to my quarters," the femme told Bumblebee. "I'm as high as a kite and need to recharge for a few hours."

As Bumblebee agreed, he briefly wondered if he should be concerned by the fact the femme admitted she felt high. However, he knew firsthand what heavy duty meds could do a bot and he already decided that the femme was typically a blunt person unless she was bored and just didn't like who she was talking to.

As they walked to the femme's quarters, Bumblebee decided this was the time to get answers from the femme she wouldn't give while clear minded. "How long were you on Earth before you ran into us?" he asked, hoping the femme wouldn't shut him out or worse yet hit him for asking persona; questions.

"I don't know." The femme answered. "Several months I think. I didn't check my chronometer often. Besides how long I stayed hidden wasn't important. The fact that I stayed hidden was."

Bumblebee nodded taking the information in. "Why did you leave the Decepticons?"

The femme narrowed her optics as she glared at Bumblebee with her peripheral vision. "Because I had to." And she refused to say anymore about it.

-That worked well- Bumblebee thought. He decided to try again. After all the more the femme talked the more insight he was able to get from her. "Who took care of you when you were little?"

"That's a stupid question. Barricade of course." The femme snorted.

"Yeah, but you said there were times he had to leave on missions and he left you with someone else."

"You've asked this question before." The femme now amused by the bumbling of the yellow scout. "One would expect you to remember that."

"Uhh, sorry." Bee stuttered, embarrassed by the slip.

They walked the rest of the way in silence. They stopped as they reached the femme's quarters. Bumblebee couldn't help but glance up and down her frame as she punched in her code. "This is where we part lil' Bee, the femme said as the door opened.

"Wait!" Bumblebee shouted, hoping the white assassin would answer one last question. She had to, it was driving him insane. "You still haven't told me your name."

The femme sighed, turning around to snap the insolent mech's head off. Why wouldn't he let this go? However, as she did and she looked at him, she recalled her thoughts of him from earlier this morning. His optics wide and innocent. His innocence was almost… desirable. She had the impression that he earnest in his desire to know her name. But she couldn't do it. Only three bots knew her real name, she couldn't just give it away. Names held power over people. That's why Black ops mechs were given second names to be used in records and during meetings. In the field, they could have multiple identities. But he wasn't necessarily asking for her name, she could easily give him a name.

The clicked in thought as she debated what to tell the scout. She wasn't found of her field designations and her real one was out of the question. That left…

"In Black ops we're given second names to avoid the enemy finding out our real identities." She told the puzzled scout. "If you must have a name you can have the name I received after my initiation." The femme turned her back to Bumblebee and entered the room.

"Hold up!" Bumblebee called. "You didn't tell me…"

"Ashfire." The femme tossed over her shoulder as the door slid closed. "You may call me Ashfire."

Bumblebee stood there, staring at the closed door. "Ashfire," he whispered, tasting the words on his lip plates. "Why would they call you that?"

Ashfire

It was more than he expected. He honestly thought the femme would laugh and mock him again. It was a fake name, but still a name. Out of all the bots on base, she told him her name. Prowl would know about it. He would have to. If Barricade knew, Prowl would to. But still she didn't tell Prowl about Ashfire. She told him.

Ashfire

Walking away from the femme's quarters, Bumblebee pondered the name. It seemed strange to call her that, but then he remembered her optics. The way those red orbs seemed to burn through him. The way they smoldered, even when they were nothing but slits. The way they would briefly flash when she was annoyed. Yes, the name did fit her.

Ashfire