Author's Notes: All right, this chapter is what I call a 'faith breaker' meaning it takes a weird turn that requires a certain amount of faith on the readers part to trust the Author knows what he (or in this case, a she.) is doing. These type of chapter often throw readers, but not in a good way and can spoil a story for them and they won't continue to read. So I implore everyone to take this chapter in stride if it makes you go 'WTF?!'. Hopefully I've explained things so they don't seem so obserd. Tell me if it worked or not. And always, please read, enjoy, and review! My biggest thanks to all of you for you're wonderful reviews and loving support! A special thanks goes to BreezesofSpring and Linariel and Starwild for thei reviews that made me happy and giddy and feel all warm and fuzzy.

Phase six: Sanctuary

Chapter Thirteen

The trip down to the bunker was quicker then Brea imagined. After marching through the halls, Jazz had taken an elevator down to the lower levels.

For some odd reason, Brea was struck dumb at the sight of the elevator. The mere concept of it made her feel oddly giddy. Her mind had never supplied an ounce of consideration that Cybertronians would have appliances that resembled anything like what humans had on earth and she found herself mentally giggling. Despite all appearances, Cybertronians weren't all that different then Humans. Their mannerisms and even general anatomy were strikingly similar. They were just made of metal instead of flesh…and were very very big.

She tried to remember if Xeon's tower had elevators. Surely it did. But she couldn't remember seeing any…of course, her mind had always been preoccupied when she first entered and left the tower.

When the elevator doors opened after a short trip down, Brea found herself staring down a short, dimly lit, corridor. There were three doors altogether; two on either side and one straight ahead. Upon exiting the elevator, Jazz marched forward to the door right ahead of him. Pausing at the lintel, Jazz carefully eased Brea into one hand before reaching up and typing something into a key pad beside the door. The mounted panel blinked three times and a small panel at the bottom left corner pulled away, revealing a square shaped indention inside which was a round jack-port of some kind.

Brea watched, enthralled, as Jazz lifted his index finger of his free hand and the metal tip split apart and a complicated looking device protruded out. Daftly, Jazz inserted his finger tip into the jack port. A low humming sound emitted from his body and his visor flickered. The pad blinked again and beeped.

"What was that?" Brea asked.

"Clearance scan," Jazz replied. "Everyone who's authorized to come down here has a special sequence encoded within their mainframe. The doors won't open from out here if the codes don't match. The codes are changed every three orns to keep ahead of any potential leaks or security breaches."

"Why so much security though?"

"Don't want Mechs with questionable intentions getting' their mits on you guys."

"Oh…"

As he removed his finger from the key pad, the set of doors in front of them parted with a hydraulic hiss.

Jazz grinned down at her. "See?"

She smiled back. "Groovy. Very James Bond."

"James who?"

"I'll tell you later."

Shrugging, Jazz strode through the doors and into the area called The Sanctuary.

Brea looked ahead of them, stifling a gasp. Of all the things she could have been expecting to see, what met her eyes was no where near anything her wildest hopes of dreams could have conjured up. In fact it bordered on the absurdly impossible; and yet there it was. It took her a good long moment to even believe what she was seeing.

Her first impression was green; lots and lots of green. Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest and a brilliant smile stretched her face as her eyes darted every which way to soak in as much of the color as she could stand. As far as she could see were green, lush trees sprouting out from a carpet of cool green grass. She spent a long moment trying to reboot herself before coming to her senses. Her head snapped up to look at Jazz; shock was written on her face, but it was the pleasant kind.

The Mech's grin widened, clearly amused.

The room was expansively huge with the ceiling well above seventy feet high. Brilliant yellow lights blared down, basking everything in a wonderfully soft glow that imitated sunlight so well that any offense of the attempted mimicry was lost in the overall vision. Trees grew up from the ground in no particular order, dotted here and there in a way that covered the space, but left sufficient room between them for their foliage to spread out and their roots to grow deep and far. They weren't astonishingly huge like a giant oak and yet they weren't small and dainty like saplings. They were perfect, speckling the landscape spaciously or in small clusters. Jazz was a fairly average sized Mech, and the tops of the tallest tree just barely reached past the top of his helm. Around them, soft green grass pelted the floor in a lush carpet and Brea mentally cheered when she caught sight of what looked like a weed.

A glint of silver caught her eye and she blinked down at the metal walkways leading into the room that splintered off from the door threshold in different directions.

A pathway for Mechs, she thought. I guess they don't want anyone walking on the grass…

Jazz stood on the metal flooring, Brea in hand, and allowed her to gawk at the room for a moment, to take it all in. Then her world dropped suddenly as he lowered her to the ground. She wobbled slightly as she stepped down, but managed not to fall ungraciously upon her butt. Staring at the world around her, she took slow, carefully steps towards to the grass. She gently pressed her foot into the cool blades. The sensation was so familiar to her; she felt the inexplicable sting of tears wash over her. Blinking them away, she turned her attention to the trees and took another set of slow, careful steps towards the nearest one. As she approached, she raised her hand out to it. Her palm pressed against the rough bark and she relished at the touch. It was like meeting an old friend.

It had been so long since she had seen, let alone felt, anything that hadn't been made of metal or other synthetic materials. Cybertron was nothing like earth, there was no warm sun or lush forests, any grand mountains or vast seas. Everything here was cold and hard and flat; she couldn't feel the life in anything around her. Her fingers gently brushed the trunk and as she was speckled with yellow light peaking through the tree foliage, she could feel it. Life. This tree was alive with the same energy that made her alive. It was familiar and comforting, reassuring and everlasting. She could smell the dirt, a rich earthy smell that contrasted to the nearly every present smells of machines; oil, ozone, and other acrid scents that burned her senses.

She turned around and found Jazz standing on the metal path, looking down at her with a curious expression she did not know exactly how to interpret. He looked to her as if he was…content. With a grin wide enough to split her face, Brea spread her arms in a wide gesture that accurate portrayed both her disbelief and glee all in one stroke.

"I…whah…how?" She stammered, emerging from under the tree's foliage. "Where'd all these trees come from?"

"Earth of course," Jazz replied simply. "We've planted some of our own farther back, but most of these were smuggled off cargo transports that just happen to get lost."

A pause.

"...why were they transporting trees?" She asked incredulously.

"Trees take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, right?" He asked.

"Yeah…" Brea nodded; she had known that since second grade.

"Well, there you go." Jazz replied. Brea squinted her eye at him in confusion, not quite understanding the connection he was trying to convey. Seeing her questioning stare, Jazz obligingly elaborated, "You see, the Kaon Trading Company is very…cheap, I guess you could call it, when it comes to energy. They figured using trees to help clean the air where they keep large number of humans would be more efficient and less costly then fans and air filters, which use energy. All trees need is light, water, nitrogen rich soil, and carbon dioxide. There's an irrigation system running through the ground under the dirt that waters everything here."

"So…what do you guys have space pirates working for you or something?" Brea asked.

Jazz laughed, "Nah, nothing like that. It's technically called salvaging. Under some old law past during the Second Great War, when any ship is abandoned, everything is up for grabs. By leaving the ship, the crew is abandoning possession of everything aboard, including the ship itself. It was passed because raw materials to fuel the conflict were so scarce. Just an glorified 'finders keepers' rule."

"…but why are they abandoned?"

"Pirates shoot out their engines, cripple the ship," Jazz grinned knowingly, "The crews usually bail when that happens."

"You just said you didn't have pirates working for you!" Brea said accusatorily, but couldn't suppress her smile.

"Yeah, well they don't work for us," Jazz replied slyly. "They sell the cargo on the market. We just buy it. Whenever we have the credits of course. Which ain't often unfortunately."

"Oh…well that's OK I guess," She replied.

"Oh?" Jazz looked amused.

"Well, these were stolen first right?" Brea countered, gesturing to the trees around her. "You could argue you were…I dunno, reclaiming them for humanity or something."

Jazz just laughed as he crouched down.

"C'mon," He said, hand twitching in a C'mere gesture. "The others are probably near the bunks."

The 'bunks' were a collection of metal sheds that occupied the space of a clearing near the middle of the huge room, positioned in a half circle. Each shed was about 5 by 7 feet with a tall rectangle cut out for the door and one square cut out for a window. In the middle of the circle of sheds was a fire pit with a metal grate over the top, charred remnants of fire wood crumbling at the bottom. There was a large metal container, like a pot, on top of the grate.

As Jazz approached the clearing, Brea heard the faint sound of melodious twanging and strumming. It would pause and stop, start over, and waver uncertainly. It was so familiar and yet so strange to hear it that she wasn't sure if she was actually hearing what she presumed. The sound grew louder with each step her chaperone took and soon she could hear the strumming more clearly and a familiar melody through the jumpy, indecisive chords.

A guitar? Oh, Brea thought, I know this song! Argh, what is it called?

Darn, she couldn't even remember the band. It was on the tip of her tongue.

Jazz rounded a bend in the metal path and the clearing came into full view. Sitting at the edge of the fire pit was a scruffy young man with sandy hair. His attention was devoted to the wooden instrument sitting in his lap, fingers strumming the strings on the body while his other hand compressed them farther up the neck.

Brea couldn't help but stare at him. It had been so long since she had seen another human that it felt almost as if she'd woken up from some long dream. The world she had known was strange and alien, but after a time it had become her reality. It had become the norm. However, seeing another human walking around seemed to remind her that she once had a life beyond captivity, that where she was at the moment was not where she was supposed to be. Those memories of home and of family, of friends…they weren't just all illusions. Somewhere, Earth was waiting for her, for all of them, to return.

"Still at it Ceb?" Jazz asked. The boy jumped, fingers pulling down the neck and making the strings screech and interrupting his hish-hash melody.

"Bloody 'ell, Jazz," the young man breathed and turned to face the Mech. His English accent surprised Brea and she stared dumbly at him for a moment. "You've got to stop doin' that to me, man. Ya gonna give me a heart attack."

The Mech merely grinned, one should rising slightly in a feeble shrug. "Sorry. Can't help it. It's just too easy."

The young man scowled, clearly not amused. "Yeah well, don't be surprised next time you get a bloody rock in th' face."

"C'mon, Caleb. Everyone knows you have horrible aim."

"Oh yea? Well then, I'll jus' hev'ta find a really big rock, won't I?"

The young man looked up at Brea, finally seeming to notice her, and he stared for a moment for breaking into a wide smile.

"Oh. 'Ello." Jazz walked forward and lowered Brea to the ground.

"Caleb, this is Brea," Jazz said, "A new arrival."

The young man rose from his seat on the ground, placing the guitar carefully on the grass. He took a couple steps towards her, smiling and offering her his hand in welcome. Brea reached out and shook the young man's hand, feeling the calloused palms and fingers press into her smooth un-worked hands.

"Hello."

"Sorry 'bout that, he does that stuff to me all th' time, ya see."

Jazz stifled a snicker, earning a glare from Caleb.

"It's alright," she said, smiling, "I thought it was kinda funny."

"Did you now?" He smiled, eyes squinting in contemplation. With his free hand, he pointed to her in a speculative gesture. "Lemme guess; American, right?" He asked as one eyebrow rose.

"That's right," she laughed. Was she really that obvious?

Caleb wore the same type of white clothe that Brea's dress was made of, but instead of a tunic like dress, he wore what was, essentially, a skirt…or a kilt. A colored sash was wrapped around his waist, the access hanging to the side. Brea made an effort to keep her eyes on his face and not his bare chest. She felt her face heat with a blush, although thankfully no one seemed to notice.

"Where're the others?" Jazz asked, gaining the two humans' attention.

"Out in the garden. Planting more Wheat I think. Craig was saying something about making a store of food incase something happens; like a bad harvest or we get more people and stuff like that."

"Probably a good idea," Jazz agreed.

"And we're gonna try and start drying some of the fruits n' veg's out ta' make 'em last a bit longer. We have like 30 tomato plants now. I told Sean he was putting too many seeds down. We're gonna be living off of tomato soup for a month," Caleb replied.

Jazz laughed.

Turning to gesture towards one of the sheds, Caleb added, "Also, Preston's in there sleepin'. He wasn't feeling too good yesterday. Think he might be getting' sick again, the poor bugger."

Jazz's face fell at the news. "I'll call Fixit to come down and check him out. How bad's it this time?"

"Nothing to get worried over, say he's just feelin' a lil' lethargic and light headed. Still, better t'be safe and keep him rested. We don't think he's gettin' pneumonia again. He's eatin' a bit, but not much. Sean says he might've just caught a bug or something."

"Better get Fix down here anyway. Just in case whatever he has is contagious."

Caleb nodded his scruffy head and turned back to Brea and the pleasant smile faded as he seemed to be suddenly struck by her appearance.

"Blimey," He breathed, his eyes trailing up her form, "You ain't from the arenas are ya?"

Brea blinked and looked down at herself. Her arms and legs were still bruised, her dress torn and giving the impression she might have just been through a battle of some kind. Her left wrist, still bandaged and braced, hung loosely at her side.

"Oh-! No, no. Nothing like that," Brea assured, "I was…ah…owned by…someone with a temper."

"Oh," Caleb's blank face turned sympathetic and he reached out to touch her collar. "I s'pose that's what this is for, then eh?"

"Yeah," She answered. A moment of silence passed, during which Caleb starred at the engravings upon the metal circulating her neck with a strangely curious expression. Brea began to feel awkward with having a boy stand so close to her, his hands running along the gold metal. He glanced up to see Brea looking at him and he backed away awkwardly, realizing his blunder.

"Oh-! Sorry, didn't mean to gawk at ya like that. Force of habit. Y'know, people like shiny things."

Brea felt the lingering heat of a blush on her face, but laughed anyway. "I-it's alright."

Caleb struggled to work past the awkward moment. "Well, ah…we'll talk with Annie when she gets back an' see if she's up to making you some new clothes," He replied in a cheerful voice that made Brea smile. He gestured to her battered limbs. "But yer alright though? Those look like they smart a bit."

"Nah," she replied, despite the ache in her ribs, "I'm fine."

Caleb suddenly smirked. "So then, what'd the Hatchet have to say about ya?"

Brea blinked. "Huh?"

Above her, Jazz burst out into laughter. She stared up at the towering being for a moment before turning back to Caleb to find him grinning reticently.

"What?" She asked, puzzled.

"I mean Ratchet. It's just a nick name we gave him that kind of stuck," He snickered, "Y'know, cause Ratchet sounds so much like Hatchet? You gotta love the English language."

The edges of Brea's mouth twitched into a smile. "Oh, I bet he l-o-o-ves that."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he did," Jazz added in, and then lowered his voice slightly as if he were afraid someone was watching, "Y'see ol' Ratch is a bit infamous amongst the former Autobots. During the war, he was the best field medic we had; his survival rates were near 90. But that was on the field. If you got so much as a ding from something other then combat, he'd rip you apart and maybe put you back together again if he was feeling up to it. His bedside manner is notorious for being down right deplorable." Jazz grinned, "But there's bit of a catch with you guys. See, he can't be rough and reckless like he can with us Mechs. He could really hurt ya. S'that's why he has the Micromasters around to help, Fixit and the others. He has to find other ways of punishing you all for getting hurt while doing something stupid."

"So he yells a lot instead," Caleb said, sounding oddly proud. "That's how we came up with the name. My brother Sean and me got into a scuffle one time, I don't even remember what it was about, and ended up giving each other some nice souvenirs afterward. Well, Fixit was patching us up, up in the infirmary, and Ratchet was there, standing to the side and lecturing our ears off at about five million decibels. I don't remember who said it, bit one of us said something about him murdering us with a chainsaw and it just kind of clicked. Ratchet the Hatchet."

Brea snickered.

"Oh, It's all shits-an-giggles now," Caleb added, "But at the time he got mad and locked us in the cabinet for three hours."

A/N 2: So, did what do you all think? Did the forest thing freak you out?