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: Just a few little scenes that won't get out of my head that hopefully have the side effect of advancing the plot. I repeat with emphasis: hopefully. It's one of those 'pester you into madness if you don't write it' things. That said I apologize in advance and ask that you please forgive my crude sense of humor in this one. Please.

Unlike the previous chapter, this one goes starts with comedy then switches gears to some deep drama. Consider yourself warned.

Junkyard

Sam fidgeted in his seat, hands unconsciously twisting on the steering wheel in marked show of his discomfort. He and the Autobot crew had been traveling for nearly four hours now, the sun just beginning to slant towards the west, and they had yet to stop. Sam had to admit, there were indeed shortcomings to traveling with alien companions and his ever increasing distress was one of them. Finally reaching his breaking point the boy spoke, "Bee, buddy, you need to pull over."

Confused at the sudden edge in the human's voice, Bumblebee slowed down. "What's the matter, Sam?"

"Nothing so long as you stop," Sam said, his foot tapping against the floorboard. "I've just got to take a leak."

"You've got to take a what?" The question came forth in an uncertain warble amidst the sounds of Skillet's latest hit drifting from the radio.

Banging his head against the back of the seat, Sam only pressed his hands down into the seats. "No time for questions, Bee! Pull over before I blow a freaking gasket!"

The radio fell to static and Bumblebee swerved off the road, tires squealing on the cracked blacktop. Feeling Sam's hands fumbling with his door handle, Bee threw the door open for him. Yelling quick thanks over his shoulder, the boy barreled out of the Camaro and ran to a nearby cluster of trees. Bumblebee watched until Sam disappeared behind a large Sycamore tree, rocking on his wheels in worry.

"Is there a problem back there, Bumblebee?" Optimus voice rang out over the Autobot communication frequency.

Still watching the tree Sam had disappeared behind; Bumblebee replied in decidedly worried tones, "Sam had to stop. He said something about a leak and blowing a gasket, but I really don't know what is going on. He seemed really desperate to get into the trees off the road though."

"Blowing a gasket?" Ratchet scoffed, "There are no gaskets in human anatomy so far as I am aware, Bumblebee. Are you sure that's what he said?"

Bobbing on his suspension in a mechanical nod, Bumblebee replied, "I quote: 'No time for questions, Bee! Pull over before I blow a freaking gasket!' End quote."

"Hmm…" Ratchet's gears grinding out the problem was almost audible over the communiqué. "It's probably nothing, but I'll come and look things over just to be certain."

"Thank you, Ratchet." Bumblebee ceased his rocking, Ratchet's imminent arrival soothing his fraught processor. Something moved in the copse of trees and Bumblebee spread his senses a bit, picking up Sam's familiar heat signature just beginning to stumble in his direction. Intent on the slow, obviously pained movements, Bumblebee failed to notice Ratchet's arrival until the mech revved his engine next to him. "He's just coming out of the trees now, Ratchet. He's just to the left of that big one there."

True to Bee's words, Sam emerged a few seconds later. He was smiling despite his limp. That is, until he spotted a certain yellow Hummer. A brief shadow of fear passing over the boy's features, he limped his way to the two vehicles as fast as he was able. "What's wrong, Ratchet? Did something happen to Bee?"

The Hummer rocked back onto its rear tires, giving Sam the impression of a man crossing his arms. "The question is, are you all right Sam?"

After a brief bout of confusion, Sam's eyes grew wide and his cheeks turned red. "I am so sorry, you guys. That was a horrible choice of words on my part. I just really, really had to go."

"Well I know that, Sam," Bumblebee harrumphed, "That is why I pulled over. Why did you have to go?"

"I um…. Well…you know…. Um…." Sam's face went beyond red into the crimson range and Ratchet ran a few quick scans to make sure the human had not contracted another fever. The scans snapped back incomplete when Sam finally mumbled something that Ratchet and Bumblebee both understood: "Lubricate?"

Chortling, Ratchet would have slapped his leg if he were in his mech mode. Instead, he opted for rocking from side to side. "Well, then. I will inform Optimus to incorporate occasional stops into our itinerary from now on." Backing towards the road, the mech smiled inwardly as Sam crawled into Bee, his face still red in embarrassment. Adding insult to injury, Ratchet spoke over Bumblebee's communications system, "In the meantime, I want to you keep that foot up Sam. You pulled those tendons in your ankle again."

The boy's ears changed to match the blush on his face and Ratchet laughed again, Bumblebee joining in when Sam threw himself across the front seat with a dejected groan.

Ratchet was still laughing quietly to himself when the group reached their first destination. The papers referred to it as "field 253", but in reality said field was occupied by a very tall, dilapidated chain-link fence with intermittent privacy slats. As they neared the property, Ratchet's laughter went silent, scanners suddenly going haywire as they hit and refracted off a mountain of metal. "Optimus, I'm running blind here. There is too much interference from the local environs."

"Acknowledged, be on your toes here, people. Who knows what lies beyond this gate?" It was not that he did not trust the American government, but a mech did not live to see as many vorns as he had without being cautious. He entered the gate while still in his alt form, followed closely by the other mechs. What they beheld was truly shocking…at least for the Autobots.

Slowing to a stop, Optimus murmured something in Cybertronian. Ironhide went so far as to transform, cannons glowing an ominous blue as they came online and he backed up a few steps in uncertainty. Ratchet transformed as well, one hand coming up to run before his optics as though he could not believe what he was seeing. Meanwhile Bumblebee cut his engine, sitting in silence while Sam slowly got out of the car. Leaning on Bee's hood, the human crossed his arms, "I'm guessing you guys don't have junkyards back on Cybertron?"

Tracing a finger along the rusting profile of a 1974 Dotson, Optimus shook his head. "No, Sam. Not like this."

Backing into a stack of decrepit trucks from bygone years, Ironhide actually shuddered, "In all my vorns I've never once seen a place like this."

Oblivious to the tense feeling sparking in the air, Sam hobbled over to the remains a Camaro much like Bee save its red coloration and smiled. "My dad used to bring me to places like this all the time when I was little. Back when he was a mechanic instead of a salesman that is." Sam actually laughed. "We used to spend hours digging through these old scrap heaps, scavenging parts for his projects. I still remember the first time I heard the engine turn in his last Junker. He was so proud of himself, he practically crowed."

Kneeling before a puddle of what appeared to be old transmission fluid, Ratchet turned ice blue optics on the human and glared in silence. Gasping at the cold emotion radiating from those optics, Sam stumbled back to Bumblebee and sat on the hood. Leaning in, he whispered to the young mech, "Did I say something wrong?" To his surprise, Bee actually shuddered underneath him.

"Don't you know what this place is, Sam?" Bumblebee asked. The boy shook his head. "To you this place is a junkyard, a place to throw scrap metal. For us, this place…. Sam, this place is a graveyard."

"This is a graveyard? Bee, I don't-?" Suddenly seeing the red Camaro across the way in a new light, Sam gasped as understanding took hold. His hand tangling in his shirt as he clutched the sudden cold spot in the pit of his stomach, he shook his head in disbelief. How could he have been so blind? Optimus caressed the hood of a wrecked corvette like the face of a dead lover, optics dimmed by dark memories. Ironhide huddled in a corner with cannons raised and muttered in Cybertronian, a soldier raging against the shadows of his dreams. Ratchet knelt in a wash of what was essentially blood, hands drenched in the proverbial river, while Bumblebee…. Bumblebee trembled beneath Sam's touch like a child in the throes of a waking nightmare.

The world shifted then. Before Sam's eyes, nearby piles of scrap became stacks of mutilated alt modes. Discarded car doors became shoulder blades, and shattered headlights, blackened optics. The junkyard wilted before him to reveal the world as the Autobots saw it…a graveyard filled to bursting with bodies stacked unceremoniously above the ground. A familiar sick feeling crept up from Sam's gut and he quickly climbed to his feet.

"God, Bee. I didn't know." He whispered. With that, he ran from the junkyard, his foot protesting loudly with every step.

"Sam?" Bee voice called after him, but Sam did not care. He needed to put as much distance between himself and that place as possible.

So, he ran as though that act alone held the key to purging the images that now raced through his mind. Images of a city in shambles and of shattered metal coated in glowing blue energon filled his vision. It was Mission City with all its near misses, a psychological wound still fresh, apt to rupture at the slightest jarring and the rusting metal of the junkyard suddenly grated upon it like sandpaper.

Even as Sam realized the source of his inner turmoil, he continued to run.

Sprinting deep into the field opposite that cursed place, Sam slowed just in time for his foot to buckle underneath him. Tumbling head over heels, he came to rest curled on his side, breath puffing up small clouds of dust as he lay. Heavy footsteps pounded to his left and Sam picked himself up to find Bumblebee standing over him in mech form.

"Sam, are you all right?" Bumblebee asked. He offered Sam a finger to hoist himself up with as Optimus and the other mechs made their appearances.

"That was one heck of a swan dive, kid."

"By the Matrix, I am getting too old for this… Are you all right, Witwicky?"

"Get out of my blasted way!"

Ratchet muscled his way through the other mechs, coming to kneel next to Sam who was now standing with the aid of Bumblebee's finger. Sam winced as Bumblebee shifted, forcing him to put weight on his foot for the briefest of seconds while he made room for the medic. Making his diagnosis even as the scans were running, Ratchet knelt to pick the boy up. "I warned you to stay off that foot. It would serve you right if you had broken it just now, although I can't imagine wrenching the tendons like that feels much better. Now, what was that about?"

"The ghosts of the junkyard," Sam stated simply, "The ghosts of the machines."

The medic tilted his head to the side, confusion playing plainly across his metallic features. Sam leaned back into the hand with a weary sigh, unwilling and unable to explain any further. After an awkward moment of silence during which Sam felt the optics of each and every mech upon him, the boy stated: "Just tell me this is not the place for the ARC and I'll be fine."

Shuddering at the very thought of constructing a base in a junkyard, Optimus stepped forward to smile down at Sam in the Transformer way. "I can say without doubt that we will never build in such a place, Sam."

"Good," Sam murmured as he closed his eyes. "Good."

The Moonlessnight: Um… Yeah. The idea for the junkyard came from a review one of you guys left me concerning the Junk Yard Wars (thanks for that), but I never intended for it to turn out like this. Sam has once again run with the bit, dragging me along for the ride. Worse than that, the whole cast seems to want their head right now. Why can't Sam stay in one piece of one pit-spawned chapter? I must admit, his apparent eagerness for this drama-ridden stuff is astounding.

Thank the light for Ratchet and Optimus, the cool heads that keep everything balanced. Without them, this story might just spiral off into insanity. –Eyes the sleeping form of Sam– That is, if it hasn't done so all ready. What am I going to do with that kid? He's an emotional wreck and harder to predict than a summer storm.

In the meantime, school official starts next Monday. Once that dreaded day rolls around, updates can and will slow down exponentially. Homework, unfortunately, comes before fan fiction. I wish that were not so, but it is the sad truth. However, I give my solemn word that this story will be finished. I will not leave it undone…. Mainly because I don't think Sam or the Transformer crew will let me. They scream louder than my personal characters sometimes. They want to be written, and who am I to say no.

With that said, I want to give special thanks to the multitude of you who have taken the time to review this story, especially those who have been following since the early chapters. Your patience with my wily ways is truly appreciated. Thank you. -- Bows low.--

Next update by Sunday or bust!