Author's Notes: Well, this is yet another fic that is victim to "Great idea; not enough time". I really didn't mean to go this long without an update, but it's hard to keep up with all the ideas that come at me like angry plot bats. Yeah, forget plot bunnies; I now officially have plot bats! Anyway, I'm surprised no one has tried to guess which TV show the chapter titles are taken from, but I suppose that doesn't matter. The point is it keeps with the theme of quoting Hollywood. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter of What a Waste :)

Chapter 3

Little Girl Lost

Carly found herself at a loss when it came to what to do about Carnia. She tried to take Carnia back to the junkyard for the night, and at first that seemed fine with the little Junkion, but when Carly left the scrapyard Carnia followed her. Carly couldn't shake the sparkling, so she decided that the best option was to take Carnia back to her house near campus until she could think of a better idea.

Carly showed Carnia a parking space, and the motorcycle-former seemed content to recharge right there under the stars and the big oak tree. After a few minutes, however, Carly felt guilty about leaving the sparkling out in the elements, so she brought a blanket and draped it over Carnia so she wouldn't be cold.

Carly went to sleep around 5:00 AM, and was grateful she didn't have classes the next day. Five hours later, however, she was awakened by the sound of her TV blaring in the living room.

The young woman forced herself to get up to see what was going on. She rubbed the crust out of her eyes and blearily looked at the scene. Carnia had walked into her house, her rusty footprints all over the beige carpets, and she was now sitting on the floor watching the news.

"Carnia...Good morning," Carly finally said, wanting to ask what she was doing in the house but feeling guilty about thinking that way about the sparkling, so she didn't voice her distaste for the mess made of the house.

"Good morning, Vietnam!" Carnia shouted cheerfully; a little too cheerfully for so early in the morning, "Got milk?"

"Um...huh?" Carly asked; confused by why Carnia would want milk.

"Energon, part of a complete breakfast," Carnia elaborated, "Some assembly required."

"Oh! You're hungry!" Carly exclaimed when she finally understood.

"By Jove, I think she's got it!" Carnia likewise exclaimed as she slapped her fist against her hand in triumph, "This conversation is brought to you by energon, the San Francisco treat."

"Okay, okay. I don't have any energon in the house, so we'll have to go to the Autobot base to get you some," Carly explained, "Do you think you're strong enough to ride all the way to Mount St. Hillary?"

"Oh no! Gravity's increasing on me!" Carnia wailed as she pretended to struggle to get up, "Operators are standing by..."

"Great, so you want me to go by myself and bring the energon back?" Carly asked a little more impatiently than she meant to.

"I will gladly pay you back Tuesday for some energon today," Carnia pleaded; her red optics twinkling in the way only a sparkling's can, "Please?"

"Oh, alright," Carly chuckled as she ran her hand over Carnia's prickly hairlike quills, "I'll be back shortly, just stay here. I'll turn the TV to an educational channel so you can learn some useful things while I'm gone. New phrases, the alphabet, colors, you name it. It's all there. Oh, here's a good video for you to watch..."

Carly then popped a Barney The Dinosaur tape into the VCR, and Carnia stared at it; transfixed as the goofy purple abomination sang to a bunch of human children. Carly sighed in relief, but then realized she was committing a terrible parenting sin; she was letting television babysit a child in her care.

"I won't be gone long, Carnia. Just stay out of trouble, okay?" Carly called out as she was about to leave, "I promise I'll be back soon. Don't go anywhere! Bye, kiddo!"

"So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye," Carnia sang as Carly left.

Carly couldn't help but smile and giggle at the sparkling's adorable antics, even if she was leaving rust stains all over the carpet and vegetating her processor in front of the TV. There was just something about that scruffy sparkling that warmed Carly's heart.

When Carly arrived at the Ark the first 'Bots she saw were Wheeljack, Skyfire, and Perceptor. They were working around the table in the control room on a new invention and didn't even notice her come in.

"And you're certain this won't explode?" Skyfire asked Wheeljack nervously.

"Positive, this new plate maker will revolutionize the way we repair our ship and ourselves," Wheeljack proclaimed proudly, but then sheepishly added, "But mostly just the ship. I can only program this thing to make orange plates for some reason. Maybe I just need to add a palette swap feature..."

"Excuse me, guys?" Carly called up to the 'Bots, and they all smiled when they saw her.

"Carly! How are you, sweet spark?" Wheeljack greeted her warmly, "How's that new sparkling you found?"

"She's doing fine," Carly replied with a smile, "Actually, that's why I wanted to talk to you guys. I was wondering if I could borrow a cup of energon, so to speak."

"Oh, you'll need considerable more than that," Perceptor replied; not getting the joke, "Sparklings don't eat much, but they need to refuel often. At least, I think the same rules would apply to a Junkion. Skyfire, you're our resident expert on the species, how much energon do you believe she will consume in one sitting?"

"I'm not sure," Skyfire confessed, "I've seen them go orns without refueling, but when they do I notice they tend to be rather greedy about their fuel. I'm not sure they even know how to stop eating once they start."

"Haha, reminds me of a puppy I had when I was a kid," Carly chuckled, "So, may I have some energon for Carnia? She seemed really insistent when I woke up today. I don't know when the last time was she ate."

"Um, Carly, forgive me for asking this, but..." Perceptor seemed uncomfortable with the subject he was about to broach, but he knew someone had to take pragmatic action concerning their new guest, "...Are you sure you should feed her at all? I mean to say if you refuse to feed her eventually she'll expire. That could prevent a planetary crisis from erupting, given that we know Junkions can be rather dangerous. Are we sure it's wise to keep this one alive?"

"Perceptor! I'm surprised at you!" Wheeljack scolded the red microscope-former, "You sound just like a Decepticon! We don't kill people for being inconvenient or potentially dangerous! We don't know anything about Carnia, and what I've seen so far doesn't point toward her being a threat anyway. She's been a good sparkling, and I won't hear you talk like that!"

"I'm not trying to be sparkless, Wheeljack," Perceptor replied placatingly, "I merely suggest we don't let our guard down so easily. For all we know that Junkion ship that crashed could have been the beginning of an invasion force. We don't know what they want, but we do know they can be aggressive. All I'm saying is be careful."

"Hey, careful or not I have a sparkling in my house that needs energon!" Carly pointed out; halting further argument, "If you can't give me any then I'll find it elsewhere, but I'm not letting Carnia starve! Besides, all she's done since I brought her home is sleep in a parking space and watch TV. That doesn't exactly spell America's Next Top Megatron to me. Oh no, now I'm speaking in TV quotes too! Oh man, I need a vacation."

Skyfire, who was trying to stay quiet on the matter, went to the dispenser and brought Carly back a cube of energon. He knew the human probably couldn't carry anything more than that. Wheeljack volunteered to take her home since she took the bus, and put the cube in his trunk for her. Carly didn't know what the other Autobots had against Carnia, but she was grateful to at least have Wheeljack on her side.

When Carly returned with the energon cube, which was quite heavy for the petite human, she found Carnia sitting in the same spot she had been before, with one glaring difference. Carly's furniture was moved into a circle, and the circle was filled with broken glass, strewed plants and dirt, garbage from the trash cans, and pages from books that had been torn; including Carly's textbooks on computer science!

"Carnia, what did you do!?" Carly shouted in equal parts anger and shock.

"There's no place like home, there's no place like home," Carnia muttered as she continued what she was doing; drawing on a scrap piece of paper.

"Ugh! I guess it's my fault for leaving you here by yourself," Carly finally conceded, "But from now on I don't want you to make a mess. Understand?"

"What'choo talkin' bout, Willis?" Carnia asked as she pouted at Carly.

"Look, I know you come from a planet of garbage, but we do things differently here on earth," Carly tried to explain, "Here we keep things neat and tidy. Well, for the most part. Anyway, I'll just clean this up later. For now I have energon for you. Eat up, or drink up, or whatever you do with this stuff."

Carnia swiftly grabbed the cube and hefted it over her helm to drink despite the fact that the cube was almost as big as she was! She gulped down the energon like a frat boy guzzling down a keg of beer. Carly scooped some of her trash back into the can while Carnia finished her energy meal. It only took five minutes for Carnia to completely down the full cube of energon.

"Ah, good to the last drop," Carnia sighed contentedly, "And now back to our feature presentation."

With those words Carnia went back to her drawing. Carly cleaned up for a few more minutes, but then was just curious enough to look down at what Carnia was drawing. She saw a brown circle that was supposed to be a planet with four beings standing on top of it. Carnia wrote the names in English letters, which Carly found surprising. The smallest figure said 'Me', so that one was Carnia. There were two bigger figures that said 'Mom' and 'Dad' respectively. Then there was a figure larger than every other person in the picture, and this one was simply called 'Gar'.

"Who's Gar?" Carly asked curiously as she continued to look at the detail in the childish crayon drawing.

"Gar," Carnia nodded sagely, but didn't elaborate.

"Um, yes, I can read the name, but who is he?" Carly asked again in a gentle tone of voice, "Is he your brother? Your grandfather? Your uncle? Who?"

"Be king undisputed, respected, saluted, and seen for the wonder I am!" Carnia sang as she rocked her shoulders back and forth to the beat, and then suddenly shouted, "Long live the Gar!"

"Oh, so Gar is a title," Carly surmised, and Carnia nodded, "Kind of like a king, or in the case of the Autobots, a Prime," another nod from Carnia, "I see. I didn't know your people had a government like that. How does one become Gar? Is it a family heritage thing like in Europe, or are they elected like a president or prime minister? For that matter, I never really asked how Optimus became a Prime. I bet that would be an interesting story."

Carnia was no longer paying attention. She had gone back to drawing her family, planet, and Gar. Carly sighed, knowing Carnia needed help she wasn't getting. She had only spent a day with the sparkling, but she was already growing to love her. If they couldn't get Carnia home, then she needed to go somewhere. Carly decided in that moment that if Carnia couldn't find another place that the college student would adopt the little Junkion sparkling. She just hoped it didn't come to that. An overworked student wasn't exactly the ideal candidate to adopt a giant alien robot.

The next two weeks of Carly's life was divided between college and caring for little Carnia. She taught the sparkling to use a telephone so she could call if there was an emergency. The problem was, there always seemed to be an emergency.

On day three of Carnia's stay Carnia called Carly because she had accidentally jammed two CDs into the computer and ruined them. Carnia fixed the computer just fine, but she was upset because she ruined the game CDs. Carly ended up buying some cheap knock-off games to avoid overspending on her budget. With Carnia's penchant for getting into trouble she knew she needed to save every penny she could.

Day four was a bit more serious since Carnia's arm fell off when the joint rusted away and she needed parts to repair herself. Carly rushed to the hardware store and bought everything her sparkling would need, only to come home and see that Carnia had already replaced her broken joint with parts from Carly's car! Carly spent the rest of the day fixing her car instead of her sparkling.

Day six turned out to be a false alarm. Carnia called saying it was the end of the world and that aliens were invading. Considering the Decepticons had been quiet lately, Carnia wondered if this was them finally playing their hand. Carly rushed home to see what Carnia knew and to protect her. When Carnia panicked while holding the VHS cover to Mars Attacks, however, Carly realized the little Junkion thought the movie was real. She spent the rest of the day explaining that it was just a movie and comforting the distressed sparkling.

During this time Carly always counted on Wheeljack or Ironhide to show up and bring energon cubes for Carly to give to her little rascal. Wheeljack always wanted to visit with Carnia, which caused Carly's neighbors to stare when the robots transformed. Ironhide didn't much care for the sparkling but also didn't hate her either. He knew how difficult life could be with younglings since so many Autobots had been raised since sparklinghood among the Autobot ranks. He knew his friend Carly would need all the support she could get, so he just grit his denta and did the best he could to be there for her.

After two weeks of dealing with daily drama, however, Carly felt like she needed to get out of the house for a while. She told Carnia that they could go anywhere they wanted for the day. What Carnia wanted to do surprised Carly to say the least.

"You want to what?" Carly asked just to make sure she heard that right.

"Meet the parents!" Carnia replied jovially as she held up a photo of Carly's parents, "Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind or forgotten."

Carly smiled at Carnia's forthright yet innocent statement. Carly had told Carnia about her parents that lived upstate, but she wasn't sure Carnia had been listening. Now Carnia wanted to meet Carly's parents for herself. Well, Carly hadn't been by to see them in a few months, so she agreed and the two set off for northern Oregon.

Carly's mom and dad were both thrilled that their daughter was coming to see them and made sure there was a hot meal waiting for their little girl. Well, the hot meal was a pizza, but to be fair neither of Carly's parents could cook. Her father was a tech genius that worked on industrial computers, and her mother was a retired schoolteacher. Both had been busy most of their lives, but they always did their best to make time for their only daughter.

Her mom checked the front window for the fifteenth time to see if Carly was there, and this time she saw her daughter pulling into the driveway on a junky motorcycle. She waved from the window and then rushed to the door to greet Carly.

"Goodness, money must be tight," Carly's mother muttered to herself, "I could have sworn she had a car."

The older woman opened the door and ran out to see Carly. Carly hugged her mom tight and then stood back again. Everything was normal, but then the motorcycle started changing shape until it looked like some sort of wild child robot!

"Oh! Goodness, you gave me quite a start!" Carly's mother exclaimed when she saw the little robot girl, "You must be one of Carly's Autobot friends. My name is Lora, and my husband Phil is inside. What is your name?"

"Carnia," Carnia replied as he held her servos behind her back and rocked back and forth on her heel struts, "Nice digs."

"Um, thank you dear," Lora replied warmly, "I must ask why you chose a rusty bike as your alt mode though. I remember meeting that one nice robot. What was his name again, Carly?"

"Ironhide," Carly supplemented.

"Yes, Ironhide. Not much of a name, but he transforms into a sturdy looking van. That's the kind of vehicle that's safe for my daughter to ride in," Lora nodded firmly.

"Mom, please. She's just a sparkling," Carly urged, "Don't insult her."

"What's a sparkling, dear?" Lora asked.

"It means she's a baby robot," Carly explained in a way she felt wouldn't invite any more questions.

They were interrupted when Carly's dad hollered out and said "Hey ladies, pizza's getting cold!"

"Pizza pizza!" Carnia exclaimed even though she wasn't sure what pizza was.

"Hm, well, your little sparky is small enough, I suppose she could come inside with us and chat," Lora offered.

"Thanks mom," Carly replied gratefully, but then added, "And the word is sparkling."

They went inside, and at first everything seemed fine with the family eating pizza and Carnia just sitting there watching their friendly exchange with a smile plastered on her face plates. Things started to go wrong, however, when Carnia got bored and left the dining room to go into the kitchen.

Once in the kitchen Carnia saw all sorts of great stuff. There were toasters, an oven, a fridge, a lamp, a table with three legs, and four chairs. There were so many new things this stuff could be made into. There were so many possibilities to make this place look like a home.

"Act now while supplies last," Carnia said to herself with a smirk, "Get your credit card ready. Call now!"

In the dining room, meanwhile, the conversation had turned to how Carly met Carnia since her parents were curious about the rust-covered youngling.

"Well, I found her in a junkyard," Carly explained, "She isn't really an Autobot, or even a Cybertronian. She's from a planet where Cybertronians dump their garbage. No one knows how the Junkions came to exist on that planet, but Carnia is one of them. She's been living at my place for two weeks because the Autobots wouldn't take her. I've never seen them act like that before, but something about Junkions really freak them out. Carnia needs me."

"Hm, maybe they were on the planet first and then the Autobots started dumping their trash there," Phil suggested, lumping all Cybertronians in the category of Autobots since he had trouble remembering all of the terms, "Maybe it's like a colonization slash invasion thing. Like what happened with the Native Americans."

"I don't know. They don't know. Nobody knows!" Carly cried out; exasperated.

"Honey, did you ever consider the Autobots might have a good reason for being so jumpy?" Lora asked as gently as she could, "I mean, I hope they're wrong, but what if Carnia grows up to be something dangerous? What if the Decepticons made a deal with the Junkions in the past or something?"

"I don't think so, but I don't really know," Carly shrugged, "I don't know the Junkions, but I do know Carnia. She's a smart, energetic, and surpringly insightful girl. Well, um, femme. Actually...I've been thinking about adopting her, since her parents died and all..."

Carly trailed off and stared down at her plate and the few meager bites of pizza crust left there. Her parents didn't reply for a few agonizing seconds, but she could feel them staring at her even though she didn't meet their gaze.

"Carly, do you know what you're saying?" Her mother asked heavily, "Sweetie, you can't raise a baby robot! You can barely take care of yourself, and you have such a bright future ahead of you once you get your degree. Do you know how much work it is to take care of a child?"

"Yes, I do. Believe me, I do," Carly replied as the last two weeks replayed in her memory, "But I don't trust anyone else to care for her, and...I don't know how to explain it, but she and I just click. It's like she and I were meant to be a family. She's a good person, but no one else is willing to give her a chance. Well, maybe Wheeljack, but I can't trust him to not accidentally explode her or something."

"How long do Junkions live?" Carly's father suddenly asked.

"Huh?" Carly asked dumbly; not used to her father cutting her off like that.

"Carly, you said once that the Autobots live for millions of years," Phil pointed out, "They are robots, and robots don't die as quickly as humans, if at all. You can't raise Carnia because she will probably still be a child when you die. Then what? The Autobots will have to take her eventually. Get them to do it now, and save the little thing the grief of losing another mother. Think of the baby, Carly."

Carly's father's words cut her to the core. She hadn't even considered Carnia's lifespan. Carnia could be a sparkling for hundreds of years, depending on how old she was at the moment. That didn't even factor in things like frame upgrades, fueling, constant repairs to her rusting body parts, and raising an inherently alien being among humans and human culture. Suddenly this seemed wrong, but what could she do? Carly wasn't lying when she said she didn't trust the Autobots with her sparkling.

Her sparkling. That had crossed her mind too easily. She was already thinking of the little troublemaker as her own.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Carly's mother shouted "Good heavens! What did you do to my stove!?"

Yes, this was the beginning of a long and trying experience. Somehow though, Carly knew she was doing the right thing by keeping Carnia around, even if their time together would, by Carnia's standards, be short.

Carly dug a small notepad out of her purse and wrote down the estimated amount of what it would cost to replace her mother's kitchen appliances. She knew it would be a good thing to start saving money back. She only hoped she could teach Carnia the concept of private property before they went bankrupt.