Combustion

Well I have to say I was overwhelmed at the response to Chapter 5… Especially considering I didn't think it was that good. Some wonderful reviews came in and I won't list them all but there were a couple of note…

DEMARCOS, thanks again for another great review :) it was nice to read. I especially loved the "Divided States of Embarrassment" comment :) not because of the slur but just because it made me laugh… So maybe a little because of the slur lol

MORGAN O'CONNOR. I like the honesty of your comment stating that the first part of the chapter didn't work and seemed 'forced'. No writer really likes to hear that :) but it does make them strive to avoid hearing it again! As I said to you I tried so many drafts of that chapter trying different things and that was the best one. I suppose you're correct though – every story has to hit one part where it doesn't gel properly. Afterall if we were all fantastic writers we'd be writing actual books :)

DANIA. Thank you again for another wonderful read :) If it weren't for the quotes you put in though I'd think you were discussing an actual book, not my fic. You make each chapter sound so professional – like I plan to add all the tiniest details in, rather than just getting lucky lol :)

A general comment to all the people too, who are asking whether the ending will be sad or not…

I plead the fifth… although since I'm not an American I can't strictly claim that. Honestly though, I won't say – and that's partly because I haven't decided yet.

I will say this though: I've read some absolutely, heart-wrenchingly, sad fics in this fandom. There are 2 that particularly stand out (and I can't for the life of me remember their names). One involved Bumblebee on a desert road, with a hologram of Sam, another was him living on and gradually forgetting everything about Sam except the feel of his hands.

Seriously I wept at that one! My boyfriend had to hug me! (incidentally he thought it was cute that I could get that upset about a story. Don't you hate people who can't invest in the written word?)

I mean let's face it the pairing lends itself to that sort of story, an eternal robot, a biological human? Unless you mess with it (and kudos to Morgan for writing a story that does!) then you're inevitably going to have to deal with Sam's death at some point.

Well I'm not one of them. I love to finish a story and go "Awwww." Not, "NO! Why Sam! Whyyyyyyyy!?" So while I won't state for sure that it will be a happy ending, my own inclinations definitely lean that way :)

Chapter 6

With a crunch Bumblebee felt his right mirror sheer off its mounting, the metal and plastic first thumping into the window, and then flung off into the street. The lamppost that had taken it proceeded to collect his rear right quarter a split second later, smashing in the panel and tearing the fender and a good portion of the trunk clear off. The yellow debris joined the mirror in a dance of bounces and pinwheels that continued even has he sped away, missing a large chunk of himself from the C pillar back. Only a swift thought had pulled his wheel in far enough to avoid it tearing free as well, and he quickly dropped it back to the road surface as he left the lamp behind, correcting the slide that had carried him into the pole in the first place. There were a hundred or more impact points across his body, though this was the worst so far, and there must have been a trail of his wreckage left behind him, like a series of yellow breadcrumbs, leading from the speedway to his current location.

At the impact site, thousands of tiny valves and switches automatically flicked off, isolating the injured section and attempting to prevent his precious energy fluid from leaking onto the ground. His rear window had shattered from the force and was now an opaque sheet of cracks, held together only by the internal reinforcing fibres that served the same purpose as laminate on terrestrial vehicles. It was testament to how much force he had slammed into the object with, that it had smashed the material which was stronger than most found on earth. His internal sensors dimmed from the seats, back to where his rear fender used to be, preventing him feeling the full effect of the wound. What he couldn't numb he ignored, his concentration focused solely on getting where he had to be.

He was severely damaged, he didn't need his internal diagnostic to tell him that, but he didn't dare to slow down. Ratchet had been an hour away at best, and Sam didn't have an hour to waste. If he was going to live to see his last seven months it would have to be through Bumblebee's actions. Inside him, a webbing of soft fibres and metal supports had formed, holding a sturdy but fragile seeming cocoon around his bonded, preventing the wild swerves and impacts from causing further injury. He had flooded his interior with an almost pure oxygen atmosphere, ready, in the event that Sam somehow managed to draw a breath. As he dodged around oncoming traffic a quick analysis showed him that the last one had been exactly 142.6 earth seconds prior. A search of the internet informed him that the human brain could not survive more than a few short minutes without oxygen, and the risk of brain damage increased as each of those minutes ticked away.

His engine screamed, the shriek of a machine pushed well past its limits, yet not ready to give out. Within, his spark howled along with it, the newly forming energy pathways and connections demanding that he sacrifice everything, even himself, to prevent harm coming to the one that had completed them. It was like an awakening from a long and sunless night to see the brilliance of a new day cresting the horizon. Programming and computing power was reallocating itself inside his processors and databanks as the spark energy travelled along his circuits and neural couplings. He could feel as, what a human would call, his mind, altered to conform to a new understanding of his being and his place in the world, as the protection and preservation of his bond mate surpassed all others.

His sensors, the ones that were still functioning, told him the hospital he was so recklessly directed towards was getting closer, and he increased his speed yet again. He was driven with an almost insane commitment that he hadn't felt before in his existence, prompting him to take any course open to him, regardless of the injury risk to himself. His self preservation programming had been swiftly overridden as it protested the damage he had started to incur, but it had paid off. He could see the building with the large caduceus emblazoned across it at the end of the street. Red lights and traffic laws were irrelevant to him as he'd sped through the crowded street, smashing other cars, trees, shrubs, anything that got in his way. He certainly didn't look like an expensive sports car anymore, but none of that would matter if Sam didn't make it to the building ahead as quickly as possible. Even now his probability assessment was down to less than 30, the number counting down like the clock he was monitoring at the same time, both numbers feeling like a blast from energy cannons, one climbing far too high, the other falling far too low. Energon flowed in rivulets across his metal skin, where the valves were either broken, or unable to close for risk of depriving a critical system, the sparkling drops looked every bit like a tiny glowing portion of the life that they were, as they hit the pavement behind him, vanishing as though they had never been. He wondered if this was what Sam felt when he cried, if he experienced this sensation that seemed like his soul's pain was poured out to taint his skin.

He didn't slow as he hit the hospital car park, hitting the speed bumps at full throttle, briefly leaving the ground as he did so, before emitting small puffs of smoke from his tyres as they reconnected with the earth. By the time he flew past the ambulances he'd hit 250, before slamming on his breaks at the last minute, smashing through the multi storey glass and aluminium wall that marked the entrance to the foyer of the emergency department. At the speed he was travelling even glass seemed briefly like hitting a solid brick wall, crunching in his radiator and headlights until the force smashed it into a sparkling sheet of needle sharp fragments. It fell like rain around him as he barrelled his way through, a large metal beam crashing into what was left of his front end. His detailed scans disappeared in an instant, as it carried away his sensor array. His audio receptors still picked up the screaming of humans around him as well as the collapsing of glass, metal and stone, and he could feel beneath him as the roughness of asphalt was replaced by the slick coolness of tiles. His tyres momentarily lost their grip, spinning him sideways and then carrying him into the plaster wall beside the reception desk, where, with a final groan, he firmly lodged, passenger side in.

Some of his optical scanners were still operational, at least enough so that he could see nurses and patients everywhere. Chairs and tables were strewn across the large open space, some filled with people who hadn't even had a chance to move as he ploughed in through the wall. Other humanoid forms could be made out lying on the ground, or moving amongst those who appeared dazed and injured. He didn't know if he'd accidentally killed anyone, and at that point his processor couldn't find energy to care. The only fact that mattered right at that point was that his driver's door was clear of debris, and he opened it so forcefully he almost thought the existing damage might cause it to tear loose. The stressed hinges held though, and with both pain and fear he released the webbing securing Sam safely within him. The shocks on that side deflated and sank, bringing the floor of the cabin almost level with the tiles, and when the distance seemed small enough, he carefully tilted the drivers chair towards the open door. The limp form slid out into the waiting area with an unnatural laxity that caused B's processors to stop.

His spark cried out at the sight of Sam lying sprawled across the floor, and in spite of the dangerous situation they were in his computations reminded him again of the beauty of the human before him, the shirtless torso almost glowing in the afternoon light, his olfactory sense still able to pick up the last traces of his human's arousal. He desperately didn't want to entrust his bond mate to the humans, with their comparatively primitive medical technology, but there was little he could do until Ratchet arrived. And even if they could only delay Sam's death, each minute brought the medical bot closer and closer to him.

A large sheet of the plaster ceiling fell on him from above, snapping across his roof like a twig, ending up draped over him in the manner of an over starched table cloth, blocking the majority of his video inputs except one on his lower door trim. That was sufficient to make out the shoes of what appeared to be a nurse, as they appeared over the body he'd just deposited. A hand entered his sight, pressing against the slim neck, checking for a pulse, and then screaming for a doctor and a crash cart. He watched as she began some sort of heart and breathing substitute that the web informed him was called CPR. The sight of the woman pressing her lips against his bonded seared through him like a tidal wave, washing all before it, and even though he knew it was a life saving medical procedure, he felt the urge to cause damage to her. The two of them were spark bound now, and that meant no one was allowed to touch his human but him. The urge to rip her off and smash her into the wall was surprisingly strong, resisted only because he viciously reminded himself that not only was she helping, but that it was due to him Sam was in need of help in the first place.

Two more sets of shoes appeared with a wheeled trolley between them. The hem of a white coat was visible around the ankles of one, evidently marking him as the doctor, confirmed an instant later as he crouched beside the nurse. His hand gently urged her away from Sam as the other pressed his stethoscope to the bare chest of the teen. Above the two of them he could hear the third person doing something with the cart, until an electric hum filled the air, building with a sound that universally signalled a system charging for overload. He revved and tried to get out from under the plaster blanket that smothered him so effectively, desperate to see what they were planning to do, but only two of his wheels responded to the command. The uneven momentum settled him sideways, embedding him further in the wall, causing more of the ceiling to collapse around him, thumping onto his hood and the tiles. The humans beside him bent over, shielding Sam from the debris that rained down over then. He couldn't see them after that, too much plaster and ceiling tile between them, but he heard the sudden electrical discharge of the machine, and he listened with baited breath for any sign of progress.

"Again." It was the doctor's voice, and the hum began to repeat, building towards a crescendo. It took a second to peak, and then another burst sounded. For tense microseconds after that Bumblebee thought he'd break down from the fear of not knowing, the fear of never seeing Sam again, of being too late to make a difference. Then a gasping breath rattled into the chaotic wreckage. He heard the doctor call for ventilation and a gurney, then his grief took him, and the equivalent of a sob rocked his chassis. Energy discharged throughout his entire system, causing a spontaneous overload, and then he was still. He desperately wanted to know where they were taking Sam, which direction, which room, but his scanners were gone and he couldn't follow them with sound after they turned a corner, the activity surrounding him drowning out everything else.

His chronometer informed him that it had only been a total of 6.4 minutes since the incident on the raceway, an incredible time to cover the distance, but a fact that meant that Ratchet and Prime were still barely under an hour away. And until they arrived, hopefully bringing Sam's parents, he would have no way to know how his mate was doing. His entire being told him that was an insufficient option and his spark demanded that he take action to find and be with his new mate. The energy patterns within him were still new, still raw, and they cried out for the presence of the one who had formed them, demanding the touch of the entity who would define his reality from now until he ceased to function. He attempted to free himself from the debris enshrouding him, each effort prompting seemingly more panic from the people still in the waiting room as well as serving only to bury him deeper. He seemed to have no option but to sit and wait it out, ignoring the painful energies flowing through his core, when around him he suddenly became aware of the presence of the hospital's wireless network, and the temptation was simply too much. He hacked it with almost childish ease and flicked through the records until he located what he was looking for.

The medical database was a remarkably polite system, showing no hostility at all once he cleared the firewall, and then quite politely informed him that John Doe was located in MRI. It then proceeded to helpfully direct him towards the camera in the room. He thanked the allspark for human paranoia, and their obsessive need to know everything that happened everywhere, video and audio coming to him loud and clear as he connected with the network.

Zooming the primitive surveillance device in, Bumblebee could make out the soft rise and fall of Sam's chest and shuddered in relief as that fact filtered through his systems like a soothing balm on a human burn. The nurse was gently taping small round sensor pads to the bare chest and arms, while the doctor sliced through the jeans with medical precision. B felt a moment of embarrassment and anger for his human as the now sticky wetness of his boxers was exposed to the assembled medical personnel. The moment the button on the machine was pressed however, a shrill tone filled the room and the camera's microphone, the screen on the small monitoring device promptly flashing white before blackening in a way that did not resemble its previous inactive state. The doctor swore, demanding the nurse hook up another machine, only to watch as that one also proceeded to detonate itself.

The third attempt involved a somewhat different apparatus, connecting a sensor to one finger and then another to a digit on the opposite hand. This machine correctly lit up, the lines and numbers filling the small screen, sending the doctor and nurse into a frenzy. He didn't catch most of it, their faces turned away from the camera, but evidently the energetic state of his partner's spark infused body was causing consternation amongst them. Everything was disconnected with haste filled movements that indicated human excitement and anticipation, the wheeled bed pushed out of the way, a third person joining them in order to shift his human onto the table that hung suspended like a tongue from the large round scanning device.

A cage like brace was fitted to Sam's head as the device seemed to light up, the doctor and nurse moving swiftly into a glass fronted observation booth opposite him. Bumblebee felt a surge of disquiet as his bonded slowly disappeared inside the machine, the effect unsettlingly reminiscent of some mechanical being swallowing him in slow motion, until the results of the scan hit the hospital's network. The images were not as detailed as his own scanners could provide, but it had been a long time, at least by Autobot standards, since he had scanned Sam internally. His scans at the track were already vastly different from what appeared on the human survey one painful slice at a time. The energy itself was of course invisible to such an unwieldy device, but its actions definitely were not.

It appeared the spark was doing exactly what Megatron's last conscious command had told it to do. It was stabilising the life force it had come in contact with, eliminating variables in an attempt to prevent the unanticipated changes that, to it, appeared detrimental to the life it was trying to sustain. The problem was that biological life relied on change to survive. Unlike the dying Decepticon, whose specifications never altered beyond what he requested, Sam's changed constantly as old cells perished and handed their tasks over to newer, more vital replacements, blood travelled to where it was needed, veins contracting and expanding, breathing and heart rates changing to meet demand. Not knowing how to combat this, the energy was sprouting growths throughout the entirety of his body, as it tried to compensate for every single alteration the boy went through. Spark energy had never been meant to interface with living tissue, the allspark was the font of mechanical life, biology had its roots in a more primitive beginning.

Now however, it seemed that there had been a rather spectacular explosion in his human's insides, clusters of cells and even organs growing exponentially as the current duplicated and renewed them. It didn't require a computational analysis from Ratchet to determine that their bonding had triggered it, the contact between cores acting like fuel on the fire and propelling it to new heights.

And it was killing his spark bound as surely as it would have beforehand, the growths stopping the important functions that maintained human life. His love's lungs were filled with blocked and congested pathways, as the alveoli that normally filtered the oxygen grew like tumours, probably cutting off his air during his exertions as the disconnected spark had acted to quell the increasing blood oxygen content. In his heart another ventricle had sprouted, distorting the organ into something that barely resembled its previous shape; a response, no doubt, to what appeared to be an insufficient ability to circulate the blood through his overworked organs. Numerous other systems showed evidence of the same sorts of changes, from the growth in the number of veins and arteries to the constricting of blood flow to the brain. Thankfully, for the moment, most of the changes appeared to be reversing themselves, more than likely because he was resting and his body's systems were returning to normal.

But Bumblebee could already see what Ratchet no doubt had noticed much earlier, with his knowledge of biological systems. Each change prompted a stronger response in the one after it, each action prompting another reaction. As the spark cut down on the oxygen supply to quell his blood oxygen level, he subsequently breathed faster to compensate, prompting increased heart rate and muscular exertion, which caused the spark to adapt his heart for the requirement, which meant his veins were insufficient to carry the pressure, and the calculations continued. Their bonding had simply demonstrated in minutes what would take months to occur normally, propelled by the energy of two sparks rather than just one.

It seemed either way his human was destined to die from Megatron's last attempt to cheat death, fading away as his systems were shut down to comply with the spark's original programming, or filled with unnatural growths until his own organs killed him.

Even as his spark shuddered at the increasing certainty of Sam's demise, his probability simulations were already spinning into overdrive, as the new information was processed by his systems; adding this to the knowledge of sparks and their energy to come up with ways this new understanding might be used to commute his human's death sentence. He had never calculated with the urgency and desperation with which he did now, plugging everything but the most critical systems in to assist with the analysis. Even if the attempt was ultimately a futile one, he drew at least one small piece of solace from this discovery. The fact that their bonding had at least offered Sam a choice as to how he would wish to die, forgoing the slow drawn out death already slated for him, and instead choosing to die while bonding with him another time, an overwhelming explosion of pleasure that would spell his end as easily as it almost had this time. His own core pulsed painfully within him at even the thought of his existence after that happened, long endless stretches of years watching the universe around him through now human eyes, seeing age and death where previously he had only seen an eternal expanse. Alone, until his own spark was exhausted, either by time or battle. Fanciful simulations of an afterlife passed across his processor at the same time, probably more a sign of how damaged he currently was than an actual probability assessment. He didn't bother to follow up the calculation. Even if there was such a place, he doubted that human's and Autobots went to the same one.

In the scanning room, he monitored as the limp figure was lifted carefully off the scanning table and returned to the wheeled bed he'd arrived in, that bed destined for a ward somewhere at the other end of the building. He was just about to follow it, jumping from camera to camera, when a hand suddenly fastened around his rear axle.

He jumped out of the hospital systems like a gazelle he'd once witnessed on a nature program, feeling the hand move back and forth through the grease until, with a clang, a piece of metal secured itself in the hand's place. The clinking of what appeared to be a chain was accompanied by the sound of heavy boot steps crossing the waiting room, both sounds halting as a mechanical whine replaced them. A few seconds later a most indelicate jolt shook his already damaged body, causing plaster and other wreckage to slide off him and add to the pile on the floor, while more dropped from the ceiling to replace it. A second jolt followed the first, this time turning into a constant pull that began to drag him slowly backwards and out of his temporary tomb.

As sunlight reached his clearing visual sensors he made out the overall clad form of an older human male, one hand gripping a cloth as the other rested on a lever that was apparently the activation switch for the winch pulling him loose. The large truck it was attached to was proudly emblazoned with bright red lettering that announced it to be a towing service, no job too big or small. His rear end began to lift into the air as the chain retracted; his back wheels halting, suspended a foot off the ground, while more chains were bolted in place, securing him firmly to the arm rising from the flat back of the truck.

It wasn't until the large machine came to life and began to pull out from the shattered front of the building that it finally registered in his circuits what they were doing. Fire flew through his circuits as his processor screamed that they were separating him from his spark mate, and he frantically looked for a way to stop them. Heedless of the crowd of people still around, he slammed his brakes on full, locking the wheels in place. But with so much damage, and only two of them in contact with the ground their effect was minimal, barely creating a squeal as the cool tile under wheel was replaced once again by hot asphalt. He ignited then, watching people's eyes widen as his crushed and dented engine roared into the confined corners of the room. His front wheels spun pointlessly against the might of the huge behemoth attached to him, even running on the desperate knowledge that he would be abandoning his bonded, intentional or not. The further he was dragged the more his handicapped senses could take in of the sizeable hole he had torn in the glass and steel structure, but by the time he was being pulled through the parking lot he knew he couldn't allow them to take him any further. With a final surge to his front wheels, he sank a spike through each of them, burying the metal barbs a foot into the earth, feeling them pass through the concrete, before finally entering the compacted soil below.

For an instant as the cable pulled tight it seemed he would be torn in two by the forces, the air almost singing as the tension vibrated the harness like a violin string. But as the engine of the truck wheezed and shuddered with the strain, the driver appeared to notice a problem, the large vehicle stopping and the cable loosening its restraint. As the old man got out of the cab and came back to find out what the problem was, Bumblebee hastily sank another two spikes through each wheel on different angles, securing himself to the baked tar surface as firmly as could have been achieved with a welding gun. They could do whatever they liked, try everything they could think of, but he would not be moved from this spot until Optimus arrived and at least one of his fellow Autobots could stand guard over his human.

They were spark bound now; no one would ever separate them again.

He'd sworn it.

Fin

Ok well this one was mainly a little B time that also did a little plot exposition preparing for the climax to come over the next 2 to 3 chapters.

I know everyone would love hot sex or great drama in every chapter but it's just not possible people:)