Disclaimer: I do not own "Transformers" in any way, shape, or form. They are the property of Hasbro, Michael Bay, and all the other masters of the craft. I am just a humble college student and make no money from this.

The Moonlessnight: To all those who think Sam is a wimp for what happens here, please step back and review the circumstances. This started three days after the battle with him still in a state of shock from it. He was/is sick with the flu (yes, I misinterpreted the symptoms as, subsequently, did Ratchet) and was exhausted. Now, it's two days later. He's just starting to get over the worst of his symptoms and has been through proverbial heck emotionally trying to come to terms with the whole soul/death thing. Sam is no wimp. He is just battered and a little out of it at the moment. No worries though. He will come around with time. I promise.

Boys

The following morning –

Optimus Prime ran a hand over his face in an approximation of human frustration. Before him sat a very apologetic looking pair of mechs and one nearly irate human boy, all of whom were dripping wet at the moment. Voice worn to a weary drawl, Optimus sighed, "For clarity's sake Ironhide, will you explain again? I am still having a little trouble sorting through Sam's explanation of events."

Standing at attention, Ironhide did not so much as shift his feet even though the water seeping into sensitive innards made him itch to. Having the human he had so recently come to terms with glaring at him in a decidedly unpleasant way did not help the matter either. Despite this, he gathered his soldier pride and stated simply, "Sir, I believed that the human was in danger and I did what was required to extricate him from the situation."

"I was taking a bath, you hunk of tin! I explained that to you before I went in. Bumblebee explained it. Ratchet explained it." Sam gestured wildly with his hands as he talked, one hand dropping occasionally to keep the baggy sweatpants he was wearing from slipping too far down his waist. "Besides that, what possible danger could there be in the lake at five in the flipping morning other than freezing cold water? What is worth plucking me out of the water like some blasted toy and scaring the blazes out of me? Explain!"

Bumblebee offered a quick hologram of a wide-eyed Sam, dangling from Ironhide's grip some ten feet above the water. The boy slipped from the metal grasp to land with a tremendous splash just before the image faded from the air. Now Ironhide shifted his feet, optics flickering once in embarrassment, "I was unaware that humans had aquatic capabilities, Witwicky."

Sam blinked, trying to translate Ironhide's words into something his teenage mind could manage. At his side Bumblebee giggled, a strangely musical sound for a mech, and remarked, "He thought that just because he sinks like a rock, you would too."

Hide did not take that remark well, hand lashing out to smack the mini-bot squarely upside his head. "What was I supposed to think? The idea of humans swimming chars my chips. They have no fins or any other aquatic attributes to support the fact. Slag it! Their air filters flood easier than ours do."

Bumblebee retaliated by playing a quick sound-bite and ducking out of reach. "Remindin' them of everything they're never gonna be /May be the beginning of a world war three / Cause the world ain't ready for nothing like Y-O-U."

Sam scrambled out of the way Ironhide lunged at Bumblebee, one massive foot landing a scant few inches from his face. Choosing a direction away from the grate of metallic gears, he ran for the rocks. Twisting between intermittent clashes of mechanized arms and/or legs, he nearly made it to his goal when a familiar yellow foot landed in his path. Unable to jump or otherwise dodge it he backpedalled, pitching himself into the air and twisting in an almost complete summersault which ended with him lying flat on his back. Air escaped his lungs in a rush and, in that painful few seconds before he could breathe again, Sam felt the ground shudder and give way underneath him. He closed his eyes and his body tensed, preparing for an impact that never came. Gasping as he opened his eyes, the boy found himself eye to optic with a very concerned looking CMO. "Have your systems successfully reset, Sam?"

The teen nodded in a numb trance. "T-thank you, R-Ratchet," he gulped the words out between hiccupping breaths, "I'll b-be fine in a m-minute."

Giving a quick nod the medic stood to his full height, carefully balancing the recovering boy in the palm of his hand. The ground was no place for humans in the presence of Autobots. That much, of that Ratchet felt certain. Optics flashing a blue just shy of white, Ratchet glared down at the mechs still hunched mid-struggle on the ground. Bumblebee valiantly holding Ironhide's fist mere microns from his faceplate and Optimus clinging desperately to Ironhide's other arm. Just when Prime had gotten into the fray, Ratchet neither knew nor cared.

"Well?" A single word, but one spoken with such authority that even Optimus cringed.

Optimus Prime opened his mouth to speak and Ratchet cut him off with a single sharp click, like the cluck of a tongue. "I don't want to hear excuses or even an apology at the moment, Prime. There is a massive size difference between our kind and the humans, and even the most innocent scuffle in their proximity puts them at risk of injury or death." Seeing the fear in Bumblebee's optics, Ratchet tilted his hand just enough to reveal Sam beginning to sit up, continuing his lecture without a pause. "Until you three realize that and can behave like fully functional mechs instead of sparklings, Sam and I will find matters to attend to elsewhere."

Ignoring the chorus of apologies and noting the sigh of relief escaping a certain mini-bot, Ratchet turned on his heel and walked away. Long strides eating up great distances, he grumbled as he walked, "By the code, I take a joor off for stasis and they revert to proto formatting." The sound of coughing drew his gaze back to the boy curled in his hand and he raised him to optic level once more, booting the proper scanning routines as he moved. "Are you really all right, Sam?"

The boy actually gave a breathy laugh, "Between getting winded, swallowing half the lake and fighting off the dregs of this blasted cold? I'm fine. I've never been better." Smiling up at the deep lines and planes that made up Ratchet's face plating, Sam leaned back against the mech's thumb. After a few seconds of silence that he read as brooding anger, the teen spoke quietly. "You know you scared the blazes out of Bumblebee with that lecture, right? You scared me too, actually. …Not that I wasn't a little scared beforehand. I know you guys wouldn't go and step on me or anything. I just saw that foot come down in front of me and over reacted, but I'm fine. Really, there's nothing to worry about."

Finishing his scans the medic sighed and came to a stop. "There is detectable damage to your shoulders, Sam. Sub dermal hemorrhaging I believe you call 'bruising'. Several contusions along your legs need tending and, whether you are aware of it or not, you have aggravated the injury you received to your foot four joors ago. I can assure you that you won't feel 'fine' an hour from now." Feeling Sam tense a little and noticing the slight increase in his respiratory rate, Ratchet sighed again. "Yes, Sam. I just ran a scan on you. No, Sam. I will not refrain from doing so in the future. I'm a medic. Taking and interpreting scans is what I was programmed to do. If you don't like it, take it up with the Matrix for giving me the empathy of a healer.

"The point is that if I did not 'lecture' them as you put it, at least two of those three mechs would not have realized the danger you were in until it was too late. Instead of lecturing me, you should be thanking Mikaela for sending me to fetch you. I may well have just saved your life."

Ratchet continued walking then, the silence that curtained him nearly deafening. Just before he arrived at the shores of the lake where the whole escapade began, Sam gently tapped the palm of the mech's hand. Glancing down, Ratchet's optics came to rest on a strangely cheery young human. "Before we get into earshot of Mikaela I just wanted to say…thank you, Ratchet. Thanks for staying up with me when I was sick, thanks for staying up with me again when I freaked out, and thanks for saving me from becoming road kill just now. "

Ratchet grunted his acceptance and nodded his head. Surprise played across his features when, a few minutes later, the human tapped on his palm again, "Can you let me down here, Ratchet? I don't want Mikaela to see me being carried like some kitten." When Ratchet gave him a relatively blank stare, Sam smirked, "It's a guy thing. Now, let me down so I can walk. Please."

Rolling his optics, the medic kneeled to comply. "If you want to go and cause yourself further pain by walking on that bum foot, then far be it from me to stop you. Just don't come crying to me later when you want some blasted Tylenol to dull the ache. You won't find any sympathy here."

Sam only smiled. Somehow, he knew the scrap from the spares in the crotchety words of the old medic.

Mikaela stood as Ratchet appeared from out of the trees, dusting ashes from the campfire off her Levis as she did so. Smiling her thanks to him, she waved and cast her eyes about for Sam. Not finding him in the immediate vicinity, she looked back up at Ratchet. The mech shrugged in reply.

Hearing an odd rumble from the mech, it took Mikaela a moment to realize that he was laughing. Just before she opened her mouth to ask what he found so humorous, Sam came limping into view. Carefully picking his way along the forest floor so as not to step on any pinecones with his bare feet, favoring his right as he walked, the boy looked absolutely infuriated. By the looks he was casting as a certain medic, Mikaela was sure that Ratchet was the source of said frustration. Just so, she did not run out to help him immediately…an act that earned her a look of emotional hurt when he finally made it to the small campsite she had erected. "No pity for the injured?" He queried.

"Not when they are being stubborn mules, Sam. Hungry?" Mikaela proffered him a bowl of oatmeal topped with sliced strawberries. Knowing full well that he was still a little on the woozy side from his recent illness, she had prepared something light for him to eat.

Taking the plate with murmured thanks, Sam cast a fiery glance at the medic. "What have you been telling her, Ratchet?"

The mech put his hands in the air, "Your femme is perceptive, Sam. I told her nothing, but she deduced the truth with the facts at hand, and you may want to sit with that foot propped up. That is, unless you are partial to stiffened ligaments."

Without a word, Sam shifted his weight to prop his foot on a nearby rock. Mikaela, meanwhile, took the whole scene in with quiet laughter. She watched Sam eat for a moment before getting up and picking a few items out of the box she had procured from the field earlier that morning. Choosing an over sized t-shirt, blue in color, she threw it at Sam. He raised an eyebrow at her and she laughed, "It's not that I don't like seeing you without your shirt, but I don't want you getting sick on me again. Just put it on, hero, and don't give your doctor here such a hard time or I won't bring you dinner tonight."

Earning a death glare for her comments, Mikaela rolled her eyes and strode over to the giant mech now sitting near the tree line. "Boys will by boys, huh Ratchet?" She said with a knowing smile. "Sometimes though, all you need to do and point them in the right direction and give them a little room."

Watching the girl disappear into the trees, Ratchet was amazed at both her astute assessments and at her simplicity of speech. Shaking his head, he smiled and turned his gaze back to Sam who was now wriggling his way into his t-shirt. "Yes. Boys will be boys, and mechs will be mechs." He paused then, processing her last sentence from a different angle.

"A little room, she said. That is the most brilliant thing I believe I have ever heard. A little room... Yes…."

Songs Used: "T-R-O-U-B-L-E", by Travis Tritt.

The Moonlessnight: Just a quick thank you to Wah-Keetcha for sparking this lovely transition here. I've had this plot in my head for quite some time (since "Malfunction" was first scribbled in my journal) and simply did not know who to work it into the existing storyline. Wah-Keetcha's one shot, "Demands, Terms, and Understanding", gave me the key to it all. Thank him/her for whatever hits the page from this point on. With that said – cracks knuckles – let's get down to business. Update by Sunday or bust! (Maybe even by Wednesday if I can grab a moment to write this out. Keep your eyes open.)