So how did you like the last part? Poor Mikaela.

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers. Only Lindsay and Cheryl.

Chapter 4

It was Sunday afternoon, nearly a month after that faithful gathering with Mikaela. If Cheryl and her had been on speaking terms, they would have been doing something by now. Instead, Lindsay was wandering around town with nothing to do. The light haired brunette was beginning to wonder if they were going to talk again. It was already weeks since the two friends fought and still they were mad at each other. She had been willing to give Dylan another chance (even though he didn't deserve it) just so that she could talk to her friend again. But after he called Mikaela a slut, she would rather drink gasoline and be lit ablaze.

As much as Lindsay wanted to march up to Cheryl's front door and tell her about how much Dylan was an asshole, she refrained from doing so. After how it went last time, her friend would accuse her of making it up just so she'd dump Dylan. And then they'd be even more pissed off at each other.

Gah, why was Cheryl so freaking stubborn? Why couldn't she see Dylan as a creep like everyone else did? Did she actually consider him as one of those 'misunderstood guys'?

Her parents were starting to get suspicious, as she recalled the conversation she had with her mom this morning.

"Lindsay, did you and Cheryl have a fight?" Madeleine Phoenix asked her daughter.

Looking up from her eggs, Lindsay glowered at her mother before resuming eating her breakfast. She gobbled up the rest of her eggs and finished off the two pieces of bacon on her plate before replying to the question. "How did you know?"

"Because she hasn't come over at all. And there haven't been any calls either."

"Yeah." Lindsay muttered.

"Was it about what happened last month?"

The brunette didn't answer her mother. It wasn't that she didn't trust her mother to keep secrets, it was just that Madeleine wasn't very good at hiding them for long. And before Lindsay knew it, her dad knew the entire story. Which was something that gave her grief at school because being a cop's daughter, especially the chief's, did not make you popular. At all.

Like it was her fault they decided to take drugs and drink alcohol and get caught in the process.

It had been a little over a month since Cheryl came over to her house drunk. Her mother had been the one to make sure that her friend wasn't going to die from alcohol poisoning before making sure that the passed out girl was going to be comfortable before the hang over hit. Madeleine was a nurse, so she knew how to deal with someone who indulged a little too much in their drinks.

"Yes." She said, deciding to tell part of the truth.

"I see..." Madeleine raised an eyebrow. She knew better than to ask her oldest daughter and third child something that delved into more personal matters. Even though she didn't like it, Lindsay would lie and say no more about a topic she chose to keep to herself. Despite the lectures she got from her father or the threats of groundings and actually being grounded, the teenager refused to change her ways of keeping her silence. And when Madeleine confronted her about it, Lindsay had a grave but stubborn expression on her face. She said that her mother could continue asking and receive lies in return or maintain her silence so that she wouldn't have to lie and cover it up in the first place.

The girl had been promptly grounded and her mother had walked off in tears. It was hard, but Madeleine had chosen to accept her daughter's words in the end.

Finished with her breakfast, Lindsay quickly washed her dishes and put them on the drying rack. But before could leave the room, her mom spoke.

"Lindsay... if it gets really bad," Her voice slightly wavered. "Will you please talk to either me or your father?"

After those words from her mom, Lindsay started feeling like crap. Again. She seemed to be feeling like crap a lot lately. Maybe it had to do with the fact that she didn't like confiding to her own parents. Like normal kids did.

With a frustrated sigh, she leaned back only to remember that she was sitting at the edge of the mall's fountain.

The brunette's scream of surprise could be heard in a good part of the mall.

She fell backwards into the fountain with a splash and if it wasn't bad enough that she was being soaked from behind, the water falling from the top of the fountain wasn't helping either. She blinked several times in stunned silence before she moved towards the edge on all fours. She looked up and saw that everyone was staring at her. As much as the girl would have liked to snap at them to mind their own freaking business, she knew it would only add fuel to the fire of gossip on the chief's daughter.

So with a huff, she crossed her arms on the fountain's rim and placed her head in them. God, she just didn't care any more...

"I hate this day so much," Lindsay muttered. "Fuck. I hate this entire week."

It had been a particularly bad week for her, but Lindsay hadn't admit that to her new friends or family.

The brunette had no idea how long she stayed in the fountain. She could hear the whispers around her, but chose to ignore them. People were gossiping about one thing or another... Lindsay had frankly put up with it too long to bother getting mad any more.

"Do people usually sit in the fountains?" An amused voice asked.

"No dumbass!" Lindsay snapped, glaring vehemently at the idiot who asked her. "I've just had a fucked up day so if you don't mind, I'd appreicate it if you would piss off!"

"Lindsay?"

She recognized the second voice (not the one who asked her the first question) that spoke to her. With a groan, she shifted her head slightly to face the person.

"Hi Mikaela," She sighed. To her displeasure, she was with Sam and Brent. Not that she hated them or anything, but she did not want more people witnessing her sitting in a fountain, completely frustrated to the point of crying.

"What are you doing?" The girl asked.

"Cooling off," Lindsay muttered.

"In the fountain?" Sam added his two cents incredulously.

"Best place to cool off."

"Okay..." Sam stared at her.

"Now if you don't mind, I'd like to be left alone to silently suffer in humiliation."

With that said, Lindsay went back to burying her head in her arms.

"Well that isn't any good." It was the first voice.

Next thing she knew, Lindsay was being lifted up and thrown over someone's shoulder. She was speechless for several seconds before she finally found the right words to say in the situation she had been placed in.

"What the hell?" She screeched. "Put me down!"

"Don't think so." Said the person holding her.

Lindsay growled, glaring at the person who lifted her out. Unfortunately, she was facing the back of his head so it wasn't going to be very easy for her to slap them. However...

"Hey!" He yelped.

The girl smiled, proud of herself for coming up with the idea to knee him. She guessed that she hit him between the abdomen and chest. So she did it again. And again. After a good thirty seconds or so, she was roughly pulled backwards into a pair of arms.

Suddenly, she was staring at a pair of blue eyes that seemed vaguely familiar to her. Before she could recall where she'd seen them before, the annoyed owner spoke. "Stop it."

The boy holding her had black hair and as mentioned before, blue eyes. He was attractive looking and seemed to be drawing attention, though the cause of that might have been the fact that he was holding Lindsay bridal style.

Lindsay stared flatly at him before drawing her left hand back and slamming her palm against his chin.

"OW! Will you knock it off?"

Sam watched the scene in dumbfounded fascination while next to him, Mikaela did the same. 'Brent', however, seemed amused by the public display.

"Anyone else here feel embarrassed?" Sam asked no one in particular. He could feel his cheeks grow hot as he watched one of the new Autobots, Sideswipe, argue with a classmate in the middle of the mall as if they were the only ones there. They didn't seem to notice the other shoppers stopping to stare as they continued bickering. Unfortunately, Sam wasn't so lucky to be ignorant of the stares they were receiving.

"I do," Mikaela said from beside him. She snorted at something Lindsay said.

Bumblebee merely snickered.

Sam elbowed him.

"Not funny Bee!" he murmured. Though he was glad his girlfriend was in better spirits.

Ever since her encounter with the bastard at Coffee Works, she hadn't been quite herself for about a week. Whenever anyone asked if she was okay, she would reply with an 'I'm fine' and say no more. Even before he came up to them, Sam had a strong dislike for Dylan McClain. He hadn't been part of the popular crowd, but he enjoyed pushing other students around none the less. He was a year above Sam. Thankfully though, he dropped out in his junior year.

There was a loud smack and this time all three of them stared dumbfoundedly as Lindsay slapped Sideswipe.

What in Primus was the femme's problem, Sideswipe wanted to know as he dodged another one of the girl's swipes. Shouldn't she have been a little more grateful that he had pulled her out of the fountain, or did she actually want to stay there?

While staying at a temporary base as the human government tried to find a permanent location that the Transformers could call home, the silver mech had overheard the two human adolescents talk about going to a mall. Looking up the definition on the World wide web, he discovered it was a big building that housed smaller stores selling merchandise that ranged from clothes to food. It was also a place where human teenagers hung out to have fun.

Having virtually nothing to do ever since he landed on Earth, Sideswipe asked if he could come along with them. Mikaela and Sam were surprised with the request, but they said yes. So he went along with them, the teenagers being driven by Bee and Sideswipe putting up his holoform so it didn't look like his vehicle form was being driven by an invisible man. On Earth, the locals didn't take too well to cars that seemingly drove themselves.

"Everything alright here?" A mall cop asked as he came up to them.

The girl in his arms stopped struggling and gave the man a flat look. "Everything's fine."

The cop looked incredulous. "Er... right."

Feeling everyone's stares, the man cleared his throat to try and make himself look professional.

"I'm sorry to say that you're causing a disturbance..."

The girl sighed loudly, interrupting the cop as she rolled her eyes.

"Put me down." She told Sideswipe, sounding tired.

He complied to her wishes, setting her down. She didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry to leave, as she clenched her brown hair with both hands and wrung the water out of it onto the floor. She did the same thing with her knee length jeans skirt.

Finally, she looked up at the cop.

"I'll leave." She used her hand to indicate towards them. "They didn't do anything so don't kick them out."

Then she left, walking towards the mall doors with water still dripping from her clothes.

The black haired holoform stared after her blankly. He didn't know why, but something about her seemed off. Maybe it was because he found her in the fountain, not caring about anything in particular.

No... that wasn't it. She seemed upset about something.

"I'll catch up with you guys later." He said, coming to a quick decision.

Sideswipe knew that if he didn't go after her, the image of the girl sitting forlornly in the water would remain in his circuits for an orn. Or longer.

An orn would calculate to about two weeks.