Sparks

Official Disclaimer: The Transformers ain't mine.

Author's Note: Heehee. Oh, and I really am a G1 Starscream fan. The idiot kind of grew on me. Unfortunately, this is movie based, and movie Starscream was just...bothersome. Sorry? Anyways, on with the second-to-last chapter...and if there are any questions left unanswered by the end, let me know in a review, I'll either edit the chapter to put the answers in or reply in a message - I think I got everything, but y'never know. I get so involved in my stories sometimes that I forget what I've written down and what I haven't.

- Chapter Eighteen: Hated Eulogies and Peterbilt Trucks -

Tabby was content. Since she'd fixed that Lamborghini, things had fallen into place again in her mind, and she'd had her first good night's rest in a long time. More immediately, she'd had a great morning - the weather was beautiful, no really irritating vehicle had come into the garage to be fixed, and she'd just had a very delicious lunch at a little cafe she'd discovered not far from the garage. Yes, life was good, and today was even better. Humming happily, she walked up to the back door to the garage office and opened it. She'd barely set foot inside when Rob practically pounced on her.

"What the hell did you do?!" he hissed frantically. Tabby frowned, and she noticed that his eyes kept skittering towards the entrance to the garage.

"Recently? Ate a really good lunch. Why?" she asked, and Rob looked at her like she was the one acting crazy.

"I mean to that Lamborghini!" he said, sounding exasperated.

"I fixed it." Tabby said with a shrug as she opened the safe, where Rob let the mechanics store their keys, wallets, and in her case, purse during the day.

"Well then why is he back here with his friends looking for you?!" Rob demanded as Tabby was putting her purse inside. She paused and looked up at him.

"Friends?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Apparently." Rob said irritably, waving a hand dismissively.

"Interesting." Tabby said, an amused smile on her face, and glancing back down at where her purse was still half in and half out of the safe. She considered for a moment, then pulled her purse back out and slung it over her shoulder and kicked the safe shut again. If the vehicles she thought were outside actually were, she wouldn't be staying long.

"Interesting? Alien robots show up looking for you after you fix one of them and that's all you can say? 'Interesting'?" Rob was in a full-blown panic, and Tabby sighed. It would probably be best to calm him down before he fainted or something - Rob was a great guy, really he was. He just didn't handle stress very well. That was why he ran a garage.

"Well, it is. I know I didn't do a bad job repairing him, so at worst they're here to kidnap me so I can continue repairing them. At the best, they're here to thank me." Tabby couldn't hide her grin as she said that, but fortunately Rob just took it as part of her 'too flippant' attitude about the whole situation, as he put it in the ensuing rant. Tabby listened for awhile, then clamped a hand over his mouth. "Relax. It's all good." she drawled, removing her hand once she was sure he'd quieted. "Besides, I've had a bit of experience in dodging giant alien robots."

"Oh, that's good. Wait, what?" Rob's voice, embarrassingly, almost broke.

"Yeah. Wasn't too good at it, though. It's how I ended up here, in the long run." Tabby said with a laugh, then walked out of the office and into the garage. Her eyes caught the Lamborghini immediately, then drifted to the search and rescue Hummer on the curb, before settling on the silver Pontiac Solstice behind it. "Hey Jazz, how's the second chance at life treating you?" she said, walking over. Behind her, she heard Rob hissing at her, asking what the hell she thought she was doing, talking to random vehicles, but Tabby knew what they were, just like she knew they were too shocked to reply. She stood there, grinning, waiting for them to recover.

---

Ratchet went into shock the moment he saw the origin of the female voice in the office - even with close-cut hair and covered in grease, there was no mistaking her, not after the amount of scans he'd run on her. Something seemed to be wrong with Ratchet's vocal processors, however, as he found himself unable to say anything - his audio receptors must be malfunctioning, too, because he couldn't understand what she said as she walked over to Jazz. Fortunately, she seemed perfectly content to wait until Ratchet's systems fixed themselves, just standing there, grinning, and completely ignoring the man from the office, who came up behind her and was hissing in her ear. Then, all at once, Ratchet's systems righted themselves, and he was able to speak.

"ALEXANDRA?!"he admitted later that he may have yelled a bit, especially considering how the humans, Alexandra included, winced. But at the time he didn't care, transforming faster than he ever had before - secrecy be damned - and lifting her up, his medical scanners working overtime as they confirmed that it really was her, she was alive, there was no Allspark in her - though there was a low level of its radiation, even lower than the first time he'd scanned her, when Optimus had sent her to the dam - and best of all, no tumors, nor any sign that they'd ever existed.

"How is this possible?" Ratchet finally asked Alexandra, and she grinned pleasantly up at him.

"The Allspark represents life, not death. It's literally impossible for it to kill, even inadvertently. So everything that was in the valley when it went nova was healed and transported elsewhere. Trees, small plants, little forest animals, and me included." she replied. "I ended up here, and there's a new forest in Kansas."

"Oh." Ratchet said, letting his surprise show. "Why didn't you contact us?"

"I was a little confused at first - the Allspark left me with all the memories of what it had done while in control of my body, so I had a bit of an identity crises. I was still sorting things out when Red Alert wandered in, and he jarred everything back into place." Alexandra replied. "But I figured he'd be back with you in tow once you got a look at the fix job on him, so I opted to just wait."

"Yes, speaking of that repair job, just how did you do it? I know you don't know that much about fixing Cybertronians." Ratchet said with a frown.

"Um, hello, memories of rebuilding Optimus and Jazz?" Alexandra said with amusement. "I know more about your physiology than I ever wanted to know. Plus I think the Allspark downloaded every possible car and Cybertronian schematic into me before melding."

"Oh...wait, melding? No, don't answer." Ratchet said with a sigh. "This is something the others need to hear, don't they?"

"Along with the Decepticons, yep." Alexandra answered. "In the mean time, though, you might want to transform back. You're drawing stares." Ratchet blinked, then realized he was standing in the middle of a major city in full robot mode. Sheepishly, he set Alexandra down and transformed back into the search and rescue vehicle - fortunately, there were only a few people out so soon after lunch, and he got Jazz to take photos of their faces and pass them on to the FBI to take care of. Alexandra turned to the man from the office, who was standing very still right now, and took him by the arm and led him away, talking to him in low tones. She got him into the garage, then stepped away, said goodbye to the two mechanics in there, then returned to Ratchet and hopped into the driver's seat.

"So do I get to see this valley that the Allspark created through me?" she asked.

"Of course." Ratchet replied, and pulled a sharp U-turn before heading off up to Montana and Cybertron Valley, Jazz and a confused Red Alert behind.

---

It took them almost a week to get up to Montana, and that was with Alex sleeping in the back of Ratchet while he drove, so they didn't lose time. The medic grumbled enough about the time lost when Alex had to stop to go to the bathroom and eat - Ratchet point blank refused to let her eat inside him - so Alex didn't bother trying to suggest stopping for a hotel, even if the constant travel was giving her a massive highway headache. Ratchet was rather silent during the trip, so Alex decided to get to know Jazz, instead - even with the Allspark gone, she retained her ability to speak on the Autobot's communications network.

Alex found she liked the silver bot - he was quite entertaining, and filled Alex in on what had happened since Cybertron Valley had been created. He even told her about her memorial service, right down to the line about the 'courageous woman who gave her life to bring a piece of Cybertron to life again here on Earth.'

"Oh god...Jazz, next time I die, I'm trusting you to make sure the eulogy reads 'she lived, she died, get over it'." Alex groaned at that.

"As long as you make sure mine reads 'lived large, died fast, left a good lookin' corpse', it's a deal." Jazz shot back.

"How am I supposed to ensure what your eulogy says when I'm going to die before you so you can make sure of what mine says?" Alex demanded.

"I dunno, come back as a ghost and haunt Optimus?" Jazz replied.

"Heh. Thanks for the idea."

For all her chatter with Jazz, however, Alex refrained from contacting anyone outside their little convoy. She knew Ratchet had already asked all the Autobots to gather - she'd heard him - and even asked that someone extend an invitation to the Decepticons, albeit grudgingly. Everyone else, she wanted to see in person before she startled them over the comm. network - actually, before she spoke to anyone else, she wanted to see Optimus and have a bit of a chat with him. She missed him. Ratchet, fortunately, seemed to have taken that into account, as when they neared Cybertron Valley, he told the other two to go ahead - but to keep quiet about Alex - before gently kicking Alex out of him and transforming. Picking her up and setting her on his shoulder, he walked around the perimeter of the valley until a large mech came into view, staring up at the stars.

"Optimus." he said, and two blue optics turned towards him.

"Ratchet. You're here. Perhaps you can tell me what this is all about?" Optimus asked, an unexpected weariness in his voice that worried Alex.

"No. But I have someone with me who can." Ratchet replied, then reached up and lifted Alex off his shoulder and held her out in the palm of his hand. Alex stared nervously up at the large Autobot she'd come to care about, suddenly unsure as to how he'd take her return. She really would have returned earlier if her mind hadn't been so muddled, but Optimus had no way of knowing that.

"Hey." Alex said finally as silence stretched on.

"Alexandra?" Optimus' voice was thick with disbelief as he stared down at her.

"The one and only." she said with a shrug. Optimus glanced up at Ratchet, then back at Alex.

"How is this possible?" he asked.

"The Allspark can't kill. It can, however, download it's memories into your head, dump you all the way across the country, then leave you to fend for your very confused self." Alex replied, then smiled tentatively up at Optimus. "Ya miss me?" In response, Optimus picked her up and held her level with his face. Ratchet quietly slipped away into the valley.

"Yes, I missed you, Alexandra." Optimus said softly.

---

It was an uneasy gathering that waited down in the valley when Ratchet arrived. Thundercracker, Skywarp, and Starscream had shown up, and were sneering at the Autobots from across the energon lake. Only Cliffjumper, out of the Autobots, wasn't in attendance, and Ratchet knew it was because he was with Beth...Tranquility and her sister's home would have to be Alexandra's next stop. It probably should have been her first stop, in fact, but it was too late to change now.

"So, Ratchet..." Ratchet glared at Sideswipe as the red bot draped an arm over the medic's shoulders.

"No, I'm not going to tell you what's going on." he said.

"Awww..." Sideswipe said disappointedly. "Not even if I promise to not end up in your med bay for a whole month?" Ratchet snorted.

"It would be impossible for you to remain uninjured for that amount of time, and I would rather you come to me and get fixed than wander around leaking everywhere...so no." he said. Sideswipe laughed, then went to rejoin his twin and report his failure in getting information from Ratchet. The medic watched with amusement as they then went to interrogate Red Alert, but the other Lamborghini just ignored them. Turning, Ratchet looked back the way he'd come, to Optimus and Alexandra. Optimus was back to watching the stars from all appearances, but if he looked closely, Ratchet could see a lump on his leader's shoulder representing Alexandra. Ratchet smiled slightly, then turned back to the Autobots to find the twins trying to literally wrestle an answer out of Jazz. Prowl yelled at them to stop it, but Sideswipe just 'POP'ed his canon at Prowl, something that the twins had taken up as an insulting gesture when in the valley.

Ratchet shook his head and brought out one of his medical tools, then snuck up on the twins and zapped each of them with it. They slumped into a light recharge long enough for Jazz to make his escape, transforming and speeding away behind Prowl, who he proceeded to hide behind. The twins made as if to follow, but stopped short and decided they had other things they could do when they saw the look Prowl gave them. That look was turned on Jazz when the twins turned away, but the silver bot just grinned cheekily and wandered over to Ratchet.

"How'd it go?" Jazz asked, his voice carefully pitched so only Ratchet could hear it.

"Good, from the looks of it." he said, and Jazz nodded.

"Hope they don't spend too long catchin' up, though - only so long the twins can distract 'emselves from the fact that there are Decepticons standin' nearby just waitin' t'be trounced." Jazz mused.

"Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if they spent the whole night out there." Ratchet said. "And I wouldn't blame them, either. They've both had to deal with each other's deaths, and realized at the same time that the other meant more to them than they even suspected." Jazz made a thoughtful sound, and there was silence between the two mechs as they watched twins continue to harass the other Autobots. It was much later when the others before them stilled, and Ratchet and Jazz turned to find Optimus approaching behind them.

"Damn, you even built a monument!" a human voice whined from Optimus' shoulder as he approached. Jazz grinned as the other Autobots, save for Prowl, Mirage, and Hound, stilled at the familiar voice. The three that had never technically met Alexandra looked curious.

"It seemed appropriate." Optimus rumbled, amusement in his voice as he approached.

"Pah, monuments are for stuffy old generals! Build me a pub or a really good restaurant or something." Alexandra said in reply, then frowned at the Decepticons on the other side of the lake. "Or just leave a pile of Seeker corpses. That would be good." Optimus just chuckled.

"Ratchet..." Sideswipe had edged over to the medic and was staring at Alexandra with wide optics, almost white as his scanners were turned on full-blast, trying to understand what was going on.

"Hi everyone!" Alexandra prevented any reply from Ratchet as she stood up on Optimus' shoulder and waved furiously to everyone. "Yeah, it's me. No, I didn't die. No, I'm not the Allspark anymore. Thankfully. And for you three new guys, hi, I'm Alexandra, nice to meet ya, welcome to Earth." There was a moment of silence, and then everyone began asking questions at once. Alexandra waited patiently until they were all finished, then began answering, explaining again about how the Allspark couldn't kill, so it had healed her, and everything in the valley, and transported it elsewhere. When she got to the part about the Allspark giving her it's memories from when it was in her body, more questions were asked, but Alexandra held up a hand to stop them, then called the Decepticons over. The Autobots left a wide space of room for the Seekers - not from fear, but because they were uncomfortable standing too close to them within beating the slag out of them. Starscream sneered when he saw Alexandra.

"I should have known the Autobots lied about you dieing." he said haughtily.

"Think about exactly who I'm standing on, Starscream, and what you did to him, personally. Then rethink that statement." Alexandra said. On the surface, her tone was pleasant, but her stance gave it a dangerous undertone. Starscream sneered again, but said no more. "Right, so, the Allspark wanted me to pass on a message to you all." Alexandra took a deep breath and bowed her head, and when she raised it again, her eyes were blank - they weren't glowing, but it wasn't Alexandra speaking to them. She spoke in a strange form of Cybertronian, that was almost the same as the original, but all the hard edges, high sounds, and other noises human vocal chords couldn't make without becoming damaged were softened, or replaced. Surprisingly, however, it was easily understood.

"The children of Cybertron have wandered the universe for countless ages, searching for me and fighting each other. Now is the time for the wandering and the searching to end, and with it, the fighting. Here on this planet, with its organic inhabitants, a new home will be made. I that you have sought have melded with Earth and its inhabitants, so than in each and every one of them is a part of me. Each human that dies, a part of me is lost, beyond your reach until it is born into a new body. Through the humans, the children of Cybertron will live again." Alexandra blinked repeatedly after she finished speaking, life coming back into her eyes.

"What does that mean?" surprisingly - or maybe not, considering he was probably the least intelligent one there - it was Skywarp that asked the question.

"It means that the Allspark is spread throughout this planet, and the people on it." Ratchet said slowly, looking to Alexandra for confirmation, and she nodded.

"If you wipe out the humans, and destroy the planet? The Allspark will be lost again. And, I think, it won't be so friendly the next time you guys find it." she said flatly, looking at the Decepticons. "It's giving you - all of you - a chance to start over, to have a home again. Only here, on Earth, will your race be able to continue."

"Continue?" Ironhide asked after a moment, optics wide. "You mean...sparklings?" Alexandra nodded.

"Earth has become, in essence, a giant, living Allspark. The humans are the keys to access it's power, though don't ask me how, I think you guys, and us humans, have to figure that out ourselves." she said. "Of course, all this doesn't necessarily mean you guys have to stop fighting, but, well - you all know what your war did to Cybertron, and Earth is much more fragile." Alexandra frowned before continuing. "I don't mind telling you, you guys are really lucky you got this. The Allspark was not very happy about finding out that so many sparks have been returning to the Matrix recently because of it. It was contemplating just saying to hell with you all and buggering off into space where you'd never find it, but apparently it found qualities in both sides that it thought were promising enough to give everyone a second chance. So if I were you, I might think about trying to end the war as a bit of a thank-you."

"A thank-you? For what? It hardly seems as if it's done anything for us Decepticons." Starscream sneered.

"Starscream. I will say this once." Alexandra said somberly, looking straight at the supposed leader of the Decepticons. "You are a bloody idiot. Grow up, take a look around, and realize that the universe will not bow to your will no matter how long you whine. Maybe if you actually grow a pair and start forcing it to change, it might bend to your will, but whining accomplishes only one thing - annoying the people around you." Starscream spluttered while Skywarp snickered. Thundercracker kept a very carefully stoic face, but didn't waste a moment in grabbing Starscream's fist when the other Seeker went to punch Skywarp.

"Given a choice between hauling either Skywarp or you out of here unconscious, I will take Skywarp." Thundercracker intoned. Starscream snarled wordlessly, then transformed and took off into the sky with a roar. The Autobots watched, trying not to laugh. "Was there anything else the Allspark wanted us to know?" Thundercracker asked Alexandra almost politely, ignoring the fact that she was doubled over in silent laughter.

"No, that was all." Alexandra had to reply over the communications network, she was laughing too hard. Thundercracker inclined his head to her and the Autobots, then he and Skywarp took off. The Autobots returned their attention to Alexandra, whose laughter finally subsided into giggles only once the Decepticons were out of sight and scanning range.

"You would not believe some of the conversations those two and Barricade had on private channels while I was at their base. Frigging hilarious." she said finally. "You haven't really heard something funny until you've listened to Barricade and Thundercracker try to explain Bruce Almighty to Skywarp when they barely get it themselves."

"I'm sure." Prowl said dryly.

"Speakin' of your time on th'Decepticon base..." Jazz piped up, giving Alexandra a curious look.

"The Allspark wanted to know about the war from the Decepticon side. Soundwave tried to interrogate it, but quickly realized that wasn't possible, so he was just going to hold me forever so that you guys wouldn't have access. He was also contemplating trying to get the Allspark to rebuild a few of the Decepticons that were dumped at the bottom of the ocean, I think, but it would have been complicated, and he ended up not having the time for it." Alexandra said.

"Why didn't Soundwave use Beth to get the information he wanted?" Sunstreaker asked, surprisingly serious for once. He and his brother knew from personal experience that Soundwave had no qualms about torturing the person closest to the one he wanted information out of.

"Heh, well, see, that's where it came in handy that I was locked away, sleeping, in the back of my mind. The Allspark didn't have feelings one way or another about Beth. If Soundwave had killed her, maybe it might've been a little upset at the loss of a life, but it wouldn't have really done much otherwise. Soundwave could sense that, and so didn't bother Beth." Alexandra replied with a grin.

"Huh." Sunstreaker mused.

"Sleeping in the back of your mind?" Ratchet couldn't help but ask, and Alexandra nodded.

"Having two minds occupying one brain is a recipe for, well, death. Since the Allspark was already expending all it's personal energy to keep my body from dying just from having it inside me, it decided it was simpler to just put me into a deep sleep, almost a coma, so it could suppress my mind and avoid the whole thing. Would've been nice if it asked first, but then, considering what it's done, I don't really mind." Alexandra said, grinning as she glanced over at Optimus' head. The Autobot leader smiled in return, then both returned their attention to the other Autobots.

"So we literally have ourselves a new home now." Hound mused, looking around the valley.

"Evidently." Alexandra drawled, echoing Hound's adopted southern accent. "Which means that you guys are probably going to have to tell the rest of the world about your existence soon."

"Primus, we just finished convincing them to keep us a secret." Prowl grumbled.

"Well, now we have the challenge of convincing them otherwise, old friend." Optimus said with a laugh, and Prowl glared at him, then started muttering to himself in an obscure dialect of Cybertronian that only Ratchet could even vaguely understand. Judging from the startled looks the medic kept giving the tactician, it was probably best he was the only one who understood him.

---

Beth was walking from Cliffjumper to her house when she heard the unmistakable sound of a large truck coming to a stop out front. She froze for a moment, then growled - she wasn't in the mood to deal with Optimus right now. She doubted she would be for a long time, in fact - even though she knew it wasn't really his fault Alex was gone, she found it hard not to blame him. He was, after all, the one who had decided that the Allspark should be destroyed back when it had been a cube, essentially starting the whole chain of events. But, if Optimus was here, Beth doubted he was just going to go away if she ignored him - she remembered Alex's tales of his stubbornness. So the younger of the two Morgan sisters walked around the front...and stopped short.

"Heya Lizzie. Whassup?" Alex said with a grin, standing in the middle of the lawn oh-so-casually. There was a moment of silence, and then Beth pounced. Optimus, sitting on the curb, watched with amusement as the two sisters proceeded to wrestle on the front lawn, Beth yelling at her laughing sister about bad clichés, leaving her alone, calling her by a childish nickname, not calling ahead of time, and running off to have...Optimus would have blinked if he could have. Kinky what?

---

A week later, the world watched in stunned surprise as the President of the United States, along with representatives of a dozen other countries, announced the existence of an alien race living here on Earth. They listened as the President explained about Autobots and Decepticons, and their purpose in coming to the planet. Then they watched as the blue flame-decaled semi that had been incongruously parked in the background of the press conference transformed into the largest robot most had ever seen. Shortly afterwards, the people that had been in Mission City during the first battle between the Cybertronians received letters from the FBI, telling them that they were no longer sworn to secrecy about the event, and stories about the fight poured into the media. A few books were even published before the mania over the alien race calmed down.

Through it all, the Autobots carried on much as they had before - but now with greater freedom to wander without drivers, transform without having to be careful of not being seen, and speak without fear of scaring people too badly. Those humans that had grown attached to Autobots found themselves the center of attention, both good and bad, but with their giant robot protectors, none of them came to harm. Rumours floated about, thanks to a handful of hikers, about a secret base in Glacier National Park, but no one was ever able to find it.

As for the leader of the Autobots, well, at first many found it odd to see him driving down the highway, hauling trailers like a normal truck with a female driver moving about in his cab, only occasionally choosing to pretend like she was driving...but they got over it. The odd faces the driver made at them whenever they stared too long helped. As did Optimus Prime suddenly hacking into their radio (or whatever other audio device was handy if they weren't in a car) and politely telling them it was impolite to stare.