Yes, I am sosososo sorry for taking so long to do this. I know I'm a little shit.

Depth Charge stared at his surroundings, optics wide in horror as he took in the carnage that X had left in his wake. Hearing a sudden scream, he took off in its direction and was faced with X. It had a youngling in its grip and was slowly crushing its throat.

"Let her go, X," Depth Charge growled shakily. X grinned maliciously and threw the child at him. Diving, Depth Charge caught the youngling only to have life energon splattered all over his frame. Shakily, he turned the child he was cradling in his arms over and saw a large hole residing in its chassis. Depth Charge stopped breathing. His systems started to overheat from the lack of cool air to cool them down. His vision blurred as warning signs popped up in his processor. Hearing a sickening crunch, Depth Charge's helm snapped up just in time for him to see X taking a bite out of the youngling's spark. The mech found himself incapable of movement as X leisurely strolled towards him. Depth Charge's spark hammered against his chassis as the failed experiment stopped in front of him.

"Now, it's your turn," it rasped, a servo reaching out to his chassis-

"DEPTH CHARGE! DEPTH CHARGE!"

Depth Charge snapped back to reality feeling tiny fists pounding on his chassis and hearing a shrill voice ringing in his audials. Asha. Bolting up, he cradled the girl, looking around for any danger and when he found none, he turned his gaze to her. Asha was crying. Her eyes were red, swollen and full of fear and judging by how hard she had been hitting his chassis (even though it didn't hurt him), she was going to have some very painful bruises on her fists.

"What's wrong kid?" he asked her gently. The girl sniffled softly looked at him tearfully.

"Y-yous was ha-having sleep s-scares," she said, her words punctuated with hiccups. "Yous shouts and- thsssss. Thsssss."

Unable to pronounce the word, Asha flapped her limbs wildly to get her point across. Depth Charge held back a snort at her theatrics, a tiny corner of his mouth turning upwards.

"You okay?" he asked her, remembering that he had been holding her during his nightmare. Smiling, she nodded and snuggled up to him, resting her head over his spark. Depth Charge's shoulders sagged with relief. He'd been lucky that he had not hurt her. Checking his internal chronometer, he used all of his willpower to sit still in the bathtub as he saw that they had pretty much slept through the rest of the day. Looking down, he realised that his young companion had fallen asleep. Pursing his lips in amusement, he adjusted his hold on her and climbed out of the tub, taking care to not jostle her. Depth Charge gently wrapped Asha in a towel and lay her on the couch while he dried himself off and put on his armour. After putting his armour and mask back on, he kneeled in front of Asha and carefully towelled the water off her body.

Rising from the floor, the Maximal realised that his young charge did not have a change of clothes. The mech paused, uncertain of what he was supposed to do. Looking around aimlessly, he wondered whether, by some miracle, the motel would have spare clothes for human younglings.

In the end, Depth Charge had gone down to the market for a quick clothes shopping trip, making a speedy escape from the enthusiastic salespeople that tried to coerce him into buying more unnecessary materials. The Maximal internally thanked Primus his estimate of Asha's size was correct as he gently helped his young charge- who was now awake -to clothe herself. The girl was literally bouncing with joy as she pulled on her new outfit, beaming at Depth Charge and thanking him repeatedly. The Maximal responded by playfully ruffling the child's hair, to which she responded with an eep! followed by a torrent of giggles.

Picking Asha up, Depth Charge held her small frame securely in his arms as he made his way to the local clinic. Fortunately, there seemed to be very few visitors and it wasn't long before he was summoned to see the doctor. The mech patiently leaned against a wall as the doctor checked Asha over for any injuries, an unnoticed tension leaving his body when the doctor announced she was perfectly healthy, then wilted under the glare of the doctor as he was admonished and chastised for the bruises on his charge's hands.

"You're lucky she didn't injure her hands," the doctor said as she applied a cream -of sorts- to her patient's hands and bandaged them, chewing out the Maximal who was trying to blend into the wall to no avail. "Make sure you put some ice on them when you get home."

Said Maximal nodded meekly, wilting under the doctor's harsh death glare, internally wincing with guilt as he picked up the child -cue another squeal of glee- and thanked the doctor gratefully before beating a hasty retreat, barely hearing his charge's words of reassurance that her hands didn't hurt -which, in fact made him feel even more guilty, seeing how she winced every time the bruised part of her hands bumped against his plating.

As he walked back to the motel, he pondered over his next course of action. If he followed rules and regulations, he would be dropping Asha off at an orphanage. Then again, he'd followed the rules and regulations on Omicron and look where that had got him. His mood darkened instantly and his body tensed as he remembered the destruction that had been wrought on Omicron. A dark frown took its place on his faceplates and he stopped abruptly, his grip on Asha unconsciously tightening.

" … De Cha…?"

The words were spoken so softly that his sensitive audios barely caught them. He had almost thought they were just background noise or even, just the wind. Depth Charge's optics shuttered as he realised that it was Asha who had uttered those words and then took a few more moments to process those words before realising that said words were actually -most likely- his name. The Maximal tilted his head and looked down at Asha with a kind smile forming on his faceplates before his expression turned to shock.

His charge looked terrified. She had drawn her arms as close to herself as she could and her eyes were wide and teary with fear. Her vital signs were all over the place, but the thing that really shocked the mech was that Asha was trembling. He could not only feel, but see her small form quivering in his hold. A surge of protectiveness overcame Depth Charge and he cradled his child in his arms, hunching over her and trying to block her form from everyone's sight as he looked at her with concern shining in his optics.

"Hey, what's wrong, kid?"

Hehehe. Yes. A cliffie. Pls review! :D