More thanks to my reviewers! Muirgen79 (yeah, she definitely should've done that, but curiosity is so very her greatest weakness), SunnySides, Teddy Bear 007, liv cahill, Answerthecall, and Kaanae! Thanks, guys!

And twdgirls, I do suspect that there will be something in here that appeals to you. Just sayin's all. ;)

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Optimus rested lightly, partially so he could keep an ear out for Anna–not that he suspected her of treachery, but because he was beginning to suspect that Primus had not sent him here merely to receive help. Something about this human was… compelling. He wasn't so injured that he couldn't notice it. True to her warning, he heard a shattering bang an hour or so after she'd left the barn, and he knew that she'd followed through on her plan for the meteorite. It was humbling that she would sacrifice something so clearly precious to her for him.

He also was listening for any signs of other Cybertronians. Now that his memory banks were accessible once more, he recalled Bumblebee's report that he had already encountered at least one Decepticon on this planet. Even with his self-repair systems now ticking away at full functionality, Optimus was still critically low on power and would rather not meet them if he didn't have to. More than that, though, he was hoping to hear the sound of a familiar ambulance engine and the growl of his friend and medic scolding him for such a horrifically clumsy landing. He would take the abuse gladly just to know that his Autobots were alive and well.

Anna returned to barn shortly afterward and he frowned at a coppery scent in the air. He hadn't encountered many organics in his life, but he'd known enough to recognize that scent for what it was. "Why are you bleeding?" he demanded, coming partially out of recharge and opening his eyes.

She glanced at him, surprised. "I'm not?" she said, but her tone made it a question as she looked automatically at her hands and arms.

"You are," he countered, sitting up now and looking her over. After a moment, he located the wound–a small nick on one ear that trickled a thin line of red. "There," he said, pointing.

She reached up and found the little cut. Pulling her hand away to see the smear of blood on her fingers, she said, "Oh–I didn't even notice that. Thought I was far away enough to avoid any shrapnel, but man, you should've seen that meteorite break! It's fine, I'll clean it up later."

He frowned more deeply at the news that she'd been injured helping him. "No, you should clean it now."

"It's just my ear. If it falls off, I'll glue it back on," she joked lightly, but he didn't laugh.

"Do it now," he commanded. He didn't like the thought of a wound on her, even one that little.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Wow, that sounded like an order," she said, making no move to obey it.

"It was," Optimus replied in the stern, no-nonsense tone that made his Autobots jump.

She pursed her lips in a flatly unamused look that wordlessly expressed her opinion of his orders and simultaneously communicated that the likelihood of her jumping to obey him hovered somewhere around nonexistent. Then she walked over to the long work bench and started searching through the tools there, completely dismissing his order with an ease that made his own eyebrows rise. She glanced up and saw him staring at her, and sighed. "Optimus, relax. It's nothing."

"I dislike leaving wounds unattended when there is time to properly care for them," he replied stiffly, even though normally one that tiny wouldn't bother him so much. Likely his own brush with death had left him a bit hypersensitive. Combine that with not being used to anyone second-guessing him and it was no wonder that her refusal threw him. "And organic species are prone to infection," he added, reaching for an explanation and wondering which one of them it was for.

Anna was looking at him like he was a little crazy now, and he was starting to feel like maybe he was, but then she gave him an exasperated look and shook her head. "All right, all right. I'll go in the house and clean it, but only on the condition that you lay back down and sleep. I'll check you over when I get back. Deal?"

Optimus wasn't sure when this had changed from an order to a negotiation, but he nodded anyway. She smiled and pointedly waited until he stretched out again and closed his eyes before he heard her footsteps retreating once more. Stubborn little thing, he thought, already powering down again, but instead of annoyance, the thought was almost… amused. He could squash her with one finger, but she still wasn't going to take any scrap from him.

He wondered if she realized just how much trust in him that attitude showed.

He relaxed and shut down all the systems he dared–her electrical contraption was indeed charging him, but it was painfully slow, especially with the energy his repair nanites were using to finish what she'd started. He still wasn't even up to 30% power yet. The fewer systems he had drawing off the charge, the faster he would recover.

That was why he didn't immediately hear her footsteps returning only a few minutes later. In fact, he had only just noticed several new pings on his proximity detector when Anna called to him in a tone that trembled on the very edge of panic, "Optimus?"

He came online in a rush–and this time he came fully online, weapons systems powered up and armed in reaction to her fear before he'd even gotten his optics completely open. Anna was backing into the barn, shaking hands held above her head and every line of her body screaming terror as she backed away from a gun barrel too large to be human-made.

Deep inside his chest, the Matrix snarled.

Optimus was in motion before he even knew what he meant to do. Grabbing for his barrage cannon with one hand, he lunged forward to the fullest extent of the charging cables, brought up short only by the hard pull on his spark chamber, and seized Anna with his other hand. She yelped as he snatched her away from the doorway and tucked her securely against his chest. The instant she was out of harm's way, he leveled his barrage cannon at the enemy just outside the large barn entrance.

Right at a very startled Jazz.

"Prime!" his second lieutenant cried, immediately lowering his gun and rushing forward. "Ratchet, he's alive!"

Optimus had a harder time lowering his own weapon. Anna was a trembling, terrified weight in his hand and the sight of his savior being menaced at gunpoint was burned into his optics with the force of pure fury. Gritting his teeth, he deactivated his gun and tried to shove the reflexive rage away. "Jazz," he said as Ratchet sped up and transformed, but instead of the warm greeting Jazz clearly expected, the name came out on as a warning growl.

Ratchet frowned at his uncharacteristic tone. The medic pushed Jazz out of the way and hurried over to Optimus, scanner held at the ready as he knelt down beside him. "What in the pit is all of this? Who did this to you?" he demanded, staring in horror at the Energon-splattered floor, broken parts, and especially the cables snaking into his chest and wrapping around his spark.

"Thank Primus you're alive," Ironhide said, also pressing into the barn, and Bee stuck his head through the doorway–there was no way the scout could fit inside with all of the rest of them–and hooted a wordless, relieved beep of his own.

"Not Primus. Thank her," Optimus said, finally making himself open his hand to reveal Anna.

Fearless as she'd been in all her interactions with Optimus, she was clearly scared to death now. She sat frozen on his palm, breathing in short, panicked gasps and staring up at the new arrivals with wide, frightened eyes. "It's all right. They will not harm you," Optimus reassured her gently in English, but a sharp glare at each of them in turn made it clear that this was an order.

Her body didn't relax one iota. "You sure?" she whispered, still staring at the Autobots like she expected them to shoot her on the spot.

Ratchet was looking at her as though he couldn't decide whether he felt surprise or disbelief or anger. Finally he settled on a mix of all three with a healthy side order of disgust and said, still in Cybertronian, "Prime, I'm asking again, what is that thing and what in the name of Vector Sigma did it do to your spark?"

"She is a human, and what she did to my spark was keep it from going out," Optimus snapped back. When the medic blinked at him, utterly taken aback, Optimus carefully lowered Anna to the ground again, putting her gently on her feet right beside him. She stood but pressed back against his armored leg as though seeking reassurance and he kept his hand beside her, close enough for her to know that he could shield her again if necessary.

Ratchet's scanner beeped, startling him out of his shock, and he read the readout with visibly growing astonishment. After a moment, he glanced at Anna again, but only for a moment before his focus returned to Prime. "From the amount of Energon soaking the dirt out there, I thought you had surely bled out," he said, shaking his head in shock. "How are you almost completely repaired?"

Optimus nodded toward her again. This time he answered the medic in English. "This human found me when I crashed, Ratchet. I would have died within minutes of landing without her intervention. She deserves our respect and gratitude."

Ironhide finally deactivated his cannons. He was already crouching to fit inside the barn, but now he bent even lower so that he was much closer to her level. "You have mine," he said solemnly, pressing a fist to his chest and bowing his head. "You've saved our Prime, little one. There's no way we can express his importance in this universe to you. Thank you will never be enough."

She trembled a little harder against Prime's leg and didn't say a word. Optimus looked down at her, worried now that he'd been too rough when he'd grabbed her. "Are you all right?" he murmured. Primus, but she was such a delicate little thing, and how did he keep forgetting that?

Her eyes were enormous. "I just stared down the barrel of a gun bigger than I am, not to mention the snatch-and-grab action there. You're going to have to give me a minute before I'm all right. Please don't do that again, King Kong. My heart can't take it."

Prime's processor, now fully functional, located the reference instantly, and he actually grinned at the comparison to a giant ape hauling a woman around in its hand while archaic planes shot at them. Humor was a good sign, and even better, there had been no markers of pain in her voice print. Still, he made a mental note to be much more gentle with her in the future. "At least I didn't haul you to the top of a skyscraper and beat my chest. Maybe next time?" he offered, hoping to get a smile.

Anna snorted. "Imagine the most emphatic no there's ever been, then double that," she said, but her body stopped shaking with fear, and Optimus would take that as a win. He looked up to find all of his Autobots staring at him like he'd sprouted a second head and abruptly realized just how out-of-character that comment was for him–Orion Pax used to know how to joke and tease, but aeons of war had left Optimus Prime with no patience for that. He was about to try to change the subject when she did it for him. "Wait a minute. How do you even know what King Kong is?"

"Internet," Optimus said, tapping the side of his head, and she actually laughed and shook her head.

"Why am I even surprised right now," she muttered to herself.

Then he went serious and looked back to his Autobots, all of whom were still watching this interaction with varying degrees of disbelief. Pretending not to notice, he made the introductions. "Autobots, this is Anna Elias, the human who saved me. Anna, may I present Chief Medical Officer Ratchet, my weapons specialist Ironhide, my second lieutenant Jazz, and Bumblebee, our advance scout."

She looked at each of them in turn, and although she went even more tense at the introductions, she didn't move away from Optimus. "That all sounds very… military," she said weakly. "And trigger-happy doesn't even begin to cover what just happened here. You said you weren't going to make me regret helping you, Optimus."

Optimus stroked a fingertip down her arm–gently, gently–in a gesture he hoped would be comforting. "And I meant it," he said honestly. "You have my word that our sole interest on your planet is retrieving our artifact. Once we have it, we will leave you in peace." The Matrix pulsed, but whether in approval or protest of this, he couldn't tell.

She looked up at him, still clearly overwhelmed, and finally rubbed both hands over her face. "Oh, this is so far above my paygrade," she whispered. Then she raised her voice without removing her hands. "I'm trusting you, Optimus Prime. Whether that makes me brave or stupid, well, I guess I won't know that until the end, will I."

Ratchet was alternating staring at her, then Optimus, then back at her again, as though he couldn't decide who was more shocking. Finally he settled on Anna. "You have hardwired equipment to my Prime's spark chamber, human. I need to know what it is and why. Now."

"Spark chamber?" she echoed blankly, finally uncovering her face.

"What you have been calling my power core," Optimus explained, then answered the medic himself. "My energy levels plummeted near to offline after the crash, Ratchet. She is recharging me. This method is clearly not optimal, but it has been effective enough to allow my systems to begin to repair themselves."

"Oh–power, spark, I should've figured that out," Anna said, shaking her head before meeting Ratchet's surprised gaze. "I realize this is probably not how it's typically done, but I didn't know how else to do it."

Ratchet just grunted in reply. He bent closer and tapped on Prime's half-closed chestplate, and Optimus obediently retracted it the rest of the way for him–the sensation of his t-cog's smooth response brought a wave of relief after his struggle to access just one arm not long ago. Ratchet examined the wiring, then without so much as looking up, said, "Human, you have made an unholy mess in here. Remove it."

Anna looked both offended and devastated at the implication that she'd done something harmful to him. "Ratchet," Optimus said on a hint of a growl.

The medic glanced at him but although he rolled his eyes and sighed, he did change his tone. "It's not hurting him, I just need it out of the way," he admitted grudgingly.

"Ignore him, kid," Ironhide said, smiling at her. "He's just slagged off that you repaired Prime almost as well as he could have. The rest of us are damn impressed."

"Hardly," Ratchet grumbled, but Anna looked a little less upset, and the medic actually explained–apparently it was time for everyone to behave uncharacteristically. "I suppose you aren't completely incompetent, but this thing you've made is the wrong kind of power, incorrectly applied. I can repair and charge him properly now, but I need all of this…" He visibly searched for a word that wasn't mess or something equally abrasive and didn't find one. "… this gone first. Now remove it."

"I'll have to turn off the generators first," she said, but she glanced up at Optimus and waited for his nod first–she clearly trusted the new arrivals no more than they trusted her. Once he gave her a reassuring smile and nod, Anna very cautiously made her way past the Autobots and out the door. A quick gesture from Ratchet sent Bee after her, and Optimus couldn't blame him for that. If he'd found an unknown alien standing over one of his Autobots with some strange device wired to their spark chamber, he wouldn't allow them to modify a damn thing without close supervision, either.

Jazz raised an eyebrow at Optimus when she was gone. "Looks like you made yourself a friend there, Prime," he said, grinning. "It's so little and cute. Can we keep it?"

Optimus was rapidly losing patience with the disrespect they were showing her. "Stop calling her it, Jazz."

Ironhide gave him a pointed look. "I have a feeling we missed something more important than you crashing and burning, Prime. Want to fill us in?"

Optimus glanced out the window to watch Bee "talking" to Anna–his vocal processor was still completely nonfunctional, but it was amazing how much the young scout could express with a mixture of radio chatter and charades. Anna seemed not to have any trouble understanding him, at any rate. The yellow bot already had her laughing as she moved to the first of the generators and Optimus was both glad to see her relaxing and, confusingly, unhappy that Bee was charming her. Something about that human had him feeling more than a little… he truly wanted to finish that sentence with protective, but possessive might actually have been more accurate.

The Matrix kicked at him again. Knock it off, I get it, he thought irritably, although he was beginning to think that maybe he didn't. I don't suppose you'd like to give me any information beyond poking at me?

And of course the Matrix did nothing at all in response to that.

"Prime?" Ironhide repeated, frowning now, and Optimus focused.

"The Matrix reacts very strongly to her. I do not know why or how, but I suspect she is important to us in some way beyond merely saving my life," he said, deciding there was no point in hiding it. Besides, maybe one of them could help him figure out what was going on here.

"Saving your life isn't merely anything," Jazz said.

Ratchet had plugged the scanner into his diagnostic port now and was studying his error history with both eyebrows raised. "Damn, Prime, you were… you weren't kidding when you said you nearly died. How did you manage to crash yourself that bad?"

Optimus sighed, feeling the power flow through the cables abruptly decrease as Anna deactivated the first generator. "Meteor strike during entry," he said, remembering the impact, the shattering pain in his heat shields and the dread of knowing that it was too late to abort atmospheric entry now. "And an inconvenient granite outcrop."

Ratchet whistled low, shaking his head as he kept reading. "The human actually did a… decent job on you," he said, looking like he hardly believed what he was seeing. "Maybe the Matrix is just expressing its gratitude."

"Perhaps," Optimus said, focusing on it again, but now that he wanted it to do something, naturally the Matrix remained calm and quiet in his chest. It was always like that–Primus guided his Primes with nudges and hints, not orders, and while Optimus usually appreciated the freedom that afforded him, sometimes it was just frustrating. "And she has a name and it isn't the human, Ratchet."

The medic ignored that as Jazz leaned forward, very interested. "What does it do? The Matrix, I mean?"

Optimus looked outside again–Anna had moved to the thing she had called a digital signal processor and was doing something to it now, and after a moment, he felt the barely perceptible irregularity in the energy inflow smooth out. That irregularity had been well within his tolerance, but her care in ensuring his comfort was touching. "It… just gets my attention," he said, watching her walk to the next generator. Then he glanced at Jazz. "And it was very angry when you threatened her."

"It was, or you were?" Ironhide asked as Ratchet shifted a component to check Prime's t-cog.

"Both," Optimus answered honestly, but Ratchet didn't even listen to that reply as he exclaimed at what he'd just found.

"What the pit did she do to your cog?" he demanded, staring at it.

"Fixed it," he said simply.

"That is impossible," Ratchet said flatly, jabbing a finger at it. "That is not how that's done!"

Optimus shrugged. "I don't know how it's done, but I know that I can transform," he said, and when Ratchet sent him a disbelieving look, he spread his hands and answered the obvious question in his eyes. "She knows robots, Ratchet–she designs power systems for the human space exploration program's robotic probes. Maybe she's not doing things the 'right' way, but it all works. No matter what you think of her methods, you can't argue that they've been effective."

Ironhide was shaking his head slowly, incredulous. "Damn, Prime, you have to be the luckiest son of a glitch ever forged," he said, wide-eyed. "You have a catastrophic crash off-course on an unaffiliated world, and you just happen to land right beside someone who specializes in exactly what's needed to fix you."

"I don't think luck had much to do with it," Optimus replied, thinking of that second strike again.

Then Jazz grinned. "Look at Ratchet!" he cackled, and Optimus couldn't help smiling–the medic looked positively offended that an untrained alien had done such a good job intuitively repairing unfamiliar systems. Ratchet sent the little silver Autobot a scowl that had no discernable impact at all on his glee. "We should definitely keep her."

"No we should not keep her!" Ratchet protested as outside, Anna cut off the second generator and went back to the signal processor again. Optimus could barely feel the jagged flux in the power flow, but again, she ensured that it didn't last. The power reduction, however, was very noticeable, and he concentrated on stiffening his spinal struts so that his Autobots wouldn't see just how weak he was. Apparently he was successful because Ratchet was still speaking. "Optimus, just by letting her take a look at you, you've stepped dangerously close to a breach of the Tyrest Accord. We can't let her take what she's learned back to the human space program or the Council will come down hard on us and the humans."

Optimus focused fully on the medic now. "I have given her my word as Prime that she will come to no harm at our hands," he said in a deliberately mild tone.

"And I'm not suggesting we kill her and hide the body, Optimus," Ratchet answered impatiently. "We just need to limit her exposure, for her sake as well as ours. This was an emergency and exceptions can be made for that, but keeping her around? That's just not a good idea."

"Wait, when did we decide we're keeping her?" Ironhide said, alarmed now. "We don't know how to care for a human–we've got no place to put her!"

Optimus held up a hand. "Anna is not a pet to be kept," he said, cutting that off right there. But just in case, he put the question to the Matrix–are the Autobots supposed to keep her?–got no response again, and he silently sighed. Finally he gave up on getting any more information from the thing and pushed it from his mind. "But Ratchet has a point. We are here for a specific mission, not to make friends with the locals. Whatever the Matrix is trying to tell me about her will become clear in time. For now, we need to focus on what we came here for. Have you found any more clues about–"

The final generator went silent and Prime's voice died in a surge of weariness–apparently he'd been depending on that external power, incorrectly applied as it was, far more than he'd realized. Ratchet grabbed his shoulders when he slumped. "Prime?"

"Just… just tired," Optimus said, bracing both hands on the floor and letting his head drop between them, focusing all his energy on overriding the need to shut down and charge. "That really was helping," he added, because he didn't want Ratchet to call it an unholy mess to Anna again.

"Yeah, I can tell," Ratchet said. He eased Optimus back so he could lie down flat as Anna and Bee returned. "Your Energon levels are dangerously low. All of us will donate what we can and I'll give you a transfusion."

Anna looked worried to see him flat on his back again and Optimus tried to give her a reassuring smile. From her reaction, it didn't work. "Wait. Is this what you're talking about?" she asked, and hurried over to open a cabinet. "Is this what he needs?"

"Where in the pit did you get that?" Ironhide demanded as three large glass jars of glowing pink Energon were revealed inside.

Anna pointed at Optimus. "I collected as much as I could while I was trying to repair him," she said, looking nervous at the intense scrutiny they were all giving her now. "But I didn't know how to put it back, or even if I should, so I just put it away. Is this any use to you?"

Ratchet finally moved. He picked up one of the large jars very carefully. "Possibly. I'll analyze it to make sure it hasn't been contaminated. It's not enough to replace what he lost, but if we can use it, it'll definitely help. Thank you," he said, and Optimus was gratified to finally hear the medic speaking to her normally, not as if she was a cross between a pest and a threat.

The medic's gratitude made her relax at last. "Can I keep a sample of it?"

Optimus reacted fast and got his reply out before anyone else could respond. "Why?"

She gestured at the glowing jar in Ratchet's hands. "I told you, I work with energy," she explained. "And that's energy–very concentrated, and in a form I'm not familiar with, but I think if I can just analyze it, maybe I can make you some to replace what you lost. I'd like to try."

And the Matrix didn't just react to that. It throbbed with a surge of light so strong that it bled through his chest components and sent an electric flash across the interior of the barn. All of the Autobots turned to stare. "Oh," Optimus breathed, lapsing into Cybertronian in his astonishment, "so that's it."

If she could make Energon, truly make Energon, it would… it would change everything.

But unlike the frozen Autobots, Anna had leapt into motion the instant that light flashed. She rushed over and scrambled up onto Prime's chest like she'd been doing it all her life, then started quickly untangling the cables from his spark. Optimus realized she thought the Matrix's flash had been some kind of electrical short. In her hurry to detach him, she accidentally brushed her fingertips against his spark chamber.

His spark reacted to the unintentional caress by touching back.

Startled, Optimus pulled his spark down as deep as he could as she hissed sharply and jerked her hand away. He'd never felt it reach out like that before. Ratchet shot him a stunned glance that Optimus had no clue how to respond to–between the Matrix's oddly insistent behavior and his spark doing that, he had absolutely no idea what was going on here. He shook his head minutely, trying to wordlessly communicate to the medic that he hadn't done that on purpose, and Ratchet's brows drew together in a concerned frown.

But Anna herself didn't seem aware that anything had occurred beyond just a minor electric shock, and she shook her hand for the briefest of moments before going back to work on the cables again. "So, can I have a sample?" she asked, and Optimus had to think for a moment to remember what they'd been speaking about–his spark's instinctive reaction to her touch had thrown him badly. "Can I try to create some?"

"Yes," he said, and not even Ratchet protested. They all knew what it would mean for their entire race if she succeeded. "Yes, Anna, we would appreciate that."

.

… and thus does Optimus Prime learn right off the bat that ordering Anna to do ANYTHING is never gonna go his way. Hee hee. Also, "I suspect she is important" has to win him the Understatement Of The Year award. Oh, Prime, just you wait...

Thanks for the reviews, people, please keep 'em coming! MWAH!