Disclaimer: Not mine, I'm just playing with someone else's characters.
A special thanks to Shades-Soul for reviewing. It inspired me to finish this chapter. Enjoy.
Chapter 5
"So this is a squishy?" something hard poked her side and she wasn't quite able to stifle a groan. Her head was pounding and she felt like a freight train had run her over. The words caught up in her mind.
Squishy? Come to think of it, she didn't recognize the vocals of the bot who spoke.
"Is it awake?" another poke, this time she was able to prevent sound escaping.
Something scuttled on her stomach. Her eyes flew open and she attempted to sit up, but found herself bound to the oversized table. She frantically looked around as much as she was able. There were two bots standing next to the table. Both had red optics and were definitely scarier than the Autobots. Her eyes fell on the thing sitting on her stomach and she screamed. There was a metallic insect sitting on her with a needle poised over her chest.
The two bots and the insect recoiled with her scream. It was enough for her to buck the insect off her. She was determined to get the bindings off. She struggled and noticed the rope holding her left hand down was fraying on the sharp edge of the table and redoubled her efforts to break it.
The bots recovered from her scream and were staring at the struggling human. One said, "I thought only Starscream could make that noise."
The other replied with, "Do you think all squishies can do that? If they can then…"
Cahira barely registered the whirs and clicks of the two bots. There were only a few threads left…
She froze. Whirs and clicks? She listened to the two bots discussing what they thought she was trying to do, and she realized they weren't speaking English!
She turned her head and stared at the two bots in shock. One of the bots poked her again. The insect scuttled up to her and climbed up her arm.
Feeling the slight pinch of the insect on her arm caused her to freak out again. She jerked her arms and her left came free. She grabbed the little bug and realized it was a Decepticon, just like the other two bots. She threw it with all her might at the wall where it went through the drywall.
Not taking time to wonder why the two Decepticons weren't stopping her, she set to work on freeing her right arm.
Cahria had freed her left leg when something slammed into her. She heard a sickening crack and pain shot though her right leg. She refused to look at it. Sensing something flying at her again, she ducked. Part of the wall had collapsed, and an arm of one of the Decepticons flew over her head. It sounded like there was a fight outside of whatever the room was. Now would have been a great time to escape, however her right ankle was now broken.
The sound of an explosion spurned her into movement. Bracing herself, she began to remove the last remaining restraint. She grit her teeth and did her best to ignore the pain.
Once free, she crawled to the edge of the table and looked down. Normally the drop would have been nothing; however she had to figure out how to get down without doing too much more damage to her leg. She glanced around.
She picked up the nearest restraint and yanked; it held. Grinning slightly she leaned her head over the edge to see where it was attached. To her luck it was just under the table. She threw the rest of the restraint over the edge and saw the end was about a foot and a half off the ground. Perfect.
Gingerly she swung her legs over the edge and grasped the restraint. Turning, she lowered herself over the edge. Slowly she made her way down. Once she was able to touch the ground she balanced on her left leg and tentatively set her right foot down. Pain nearly blinded her. Okay not doing that again. Now what to do? She looked around and saw a rod of rebar and hopped over to it. It was a little long but it would have to do. She used the rebar as a makeshift crutch and hobbled out of the collapsed wall.
Outside was chaos. She stuck close to the wall and saw Optimus duking it out with a grey bot with spikes. Bumblebee was attempting to get into the building she just left but was being distracted by Barricade. Hide was firing away at anything that was not an Autobot. She reached the corner of the building and saw a motorcycle. She got on and started it up. Luckily it was an electric start, and the keys were in the ignition. Balancing she kicked the kickstand up, sending yet another round of pain in her leg. Cahira put it in gear and took off. She dodged the brawling bots, doing everything she could to stay alive and find an exit.
Suddenly the motorcycle turned on its own. She was so startled she nearly let go. There was a heads up display with words scrolling across it. She stared at the foreign characters, but she knew what it said.
I am an Autobot. The words didn't reassure her much, but the fact that the motorcycle had yet to buck her off gave her hope that this really was an Autobot.
"Well, that's nice, but can we please get out of here?" The motorcycle ignored her. "In case you didn't notice, the exit is that way!" She pointed to the right. "Where the hell are you taking me, you hunk of metal?" She was panicking by now.
The motorcycle slid to a stop and tried to throw her off, but Cahira hung on. That was until a large metal hand grasped her waist and picked her up. She screamed again, causing every bot in hearing range to freeze, nearly making the bot drop her.
"Primus, don't do that." She recognized the vocals as Jazz. She looked up and nearly cried in relief at seeing Jazz. She hugged the hand holding her.
"Please, please, get me out of here, Jazz. I'm sorry for taking off and everything…" she trailed off as Jazz transformed around her and took off, tires squealing in protest at the speed, for the highway. She sighed in relief and relaxed in the passenger seat.
Someone was nudging her shoulder saying, "Wake up Cay, we're almost there."
"Huh? Wha-?" was her eloquent reply.
A rich baritone laugh answered her. "You fell asleep. We're almost back to base." Holo-Jazz glanced at her and said, "How you feeling? Those Decepticon scum do anything to you?"
She gave a short laugh, "I don't know. Barricade used chloroform on me. I woke up maybe an hour before you guys attacked." She shifted in her seat, "Ow!" She moved her right foot. "Damnit."
Jazz looked at her worriedly. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she winced, "Just ended up with a broken ankle. I'll need to see Ratch when we get back. Come to think of it, I didn't see him fighting. Did he stay at base?"
"You broke your ankle? How? And Ratchet seemed to know that you would be in the med bay when you got back, so yes he stayed."
"Someone, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it was probably Hide, blasted a hole in the wall of the place they were keeping me. They had me restrained and I had undone all but one when the blast hit. Hence my broken ankle."
Jazz parked and his holoform got out and walked to the passenger side door. He opened it and reached in.
"What are you – HEY! Put me down!" He picked up Cahira and began walking to the med bay.
"Not gonna happen, little femme." She began to protest. "You have a broken leg at the very least and can't walk, so, I'm going to carry you." She resigned herself to her fate and propped her head on her hand.
"You know, you could have said something before you started manhandling me."
"Where's the fun in that? Besides Ratch would offline me if I let you walk-"
"Hop."Cahira interjected. "I can't exactly walk, you know."
"Fine. He would offline me if I let you hop to the med bay." Jazz finished.
They continued to the med bay in silence. Neither knew what to say, and yet wanting to say something. Cahira found Jazz's presence was almost as calming as the sea. She relaxed against him, falling into a light doze. Jazz couldn't help thinking But Hide wasn't anywhere near Arcee.
That was the sight Ratchet was treated to when Jazz walked into his med bay. Jazz carrying Cay and Cay relaxed against him. Jazz carefully set Cay down on a human sized berth and allowed Ratchet to get to work.
Ratchet found some disturbing marks on Cay, in addition to the broken ankle. It appeared that the Decepticons had taken samples of blood, injected a foreign substance in to her blood and had roughly handled the small femme. She showed signs of some internal bleeding and had stress marks on her bones from being squeezed. She was covered almost head to toe in bruises. He fixed what he could but could not figure out what the substance in her blood was. However it appeared her own defenses were fighting it off or mutating it in some way, as the amount of the substance was steadily declining. He would have to wait until she woke up to see if there were any changes.
The other bots were worried for the small femme that was taken by the Decepticons. Arcee hadn't thought about it at the time but when she was speaking to the femme, she had used Cybertronian symbols. She asked Bumblebee if his human could understand Cybertronian.
"No, neither Sam nor Mikeala can understand Cybertronian. Why do you ask?"
"It's just that femme we rescued, she read Cybertronian. I forgot to use English."
"How do you know she understood?" Bee was curious.
"She responded to what I said. I don't think she trusts me."
"Cay hardly trusts anyone, don't take it personally. She's trusts Ratchet and Jazz the most. Even then I don't know how much she's told them about her past. We do know she had a hard life before she came here." Bee proceeded to explain what they knew about Cay's past.
Needless to say it made the bots that were unaware of Cay's past furious.
Cay woke up and found herself looking at the ceiling of the med bay. "Oi, my head." Light flared and she flinched away from it. The movement jarred her other injuries. Her ankle was fine by now but the bruising was taking more time to heal. The fact that she was quite literally black and blue made it that much harder to move without causing at least some discomfort. She was also sore and stiff. She slowly stood up and began to stretch attempting to loosen her muscles.
She wandered over to Ratchet's office and found him deep in recharge on his berth. She gained a wistful smile. She wondered how much she had worried him and when the last time he had recharged. She also began to wonder exactly how long the Decepticon had her at their tender mercies. She was beginning to see Ratchet as the father she never had.
She suddenly smirked. This was too good of an opportunity to pass up. She grabbed her laptop, which she left in the med bay for convenience sake, and went to Ratchet. She plugged her laptop into his port and planted a suggestion. Ratchet would be very surprised when he woke up. She bit back her snickers as he began sleepwalking.
Cahira decided to get ready for the day, after all she needed a good alibi.
Jazz and Ironhide were introducing Cahira to the new arrivals, when the found Ratchet curled up like a cat next to a recharging Optimus. Cahira grinned and snapped a picture. This wasn't what she expected when she had implanted that suggestion but it was better than she could have imagined. At least she now had proof the two were spark mates.
Jazz turned his head to the femme sitting on his shoulder. "This is your doing isn't it?"
"Maybe. But you better not say anything. I had a feeling those two had something going on. Now I know for sure."
One of the new arrivals, a yellow Lamborghini, spoke up. "How could a squishy cause this to happen?"
Cay shuddered at the use of the name squishy. "My name is Cahira. Do not call me squishy." She glared at the Lambo.
"You are just a tiny little human. What could you possibly do to me?"
Jazz groaned, one thing he had learned was to never challenge Cay.
"I can be your worst nightmare." She smirked up at him, "I am, after all, Ratchet's apprentice." She let the information sink in. "Good luck, you're going to need it." With that she walked out the door leaving Jazz trailing behind her.
Jazz didn't know what to do. He really needed to talk to Cay about what had happened while they were at the beach, however he didn't know how to go about bringing it up to the little femme. Jazz didn't realize he would be saved the trouble by said femme.
"I'm sorry." The femme currently perched on his shoulder said.
"For what?" Jazz was confused, as he often was, particularly around this human.
"The beach. It was supposed to be a fun trip and I ended up ruining it by getting captured by Decepticons." She bowed her head and curled up into a ball. How she was able to accomplish that without falling amazed Jazz, but her words worried him. He sent a com to Ratchet asking him to join the two, as Jazz didn't think he would be able to handle the distraught femme alone.
"You didn't ruin anything. It was the damn Cons fault." He gently picked the femme off his shoulder and cradled her in his hand. He rubbed the tip of his finger up and down her back trying to calm her down.
Ratchet came up to that scene and his disgruntled face immediately softened. He sat down and activated his holoform, ironically enough he looked very similar to Hugh Laurie. He motioned Jazz to set Cahira down.
"Its alright little one." Ratchet said, hugging the small girl.
"No, Ratch its not. I messed up, just like I always do." She sobbed out.
Jazz activated his holoform as well. "You don't always mess up. And even if you did, its not that big of a deal."
Cahira let out a half laugh. "Why are you so nice?"
The two bots were thrown off buy the abrupt change of topic.
"What do you mean, little one?" Ratchet asked softly.
Cahira pulled away from him, and searched his face then Jazz's. "You don't understand, and yet you both know exactly what to say."
The cryptic words just confused them more, and it showed.
"I grew up with my father," she spat the word like a curse, "belittling me at every chance. Even when my mom was alive. It was only because she was around that he didn't hit me. I always wondered why my mom stayed with him, but I guess she had a reason, although I'll never know. It's been nine years since she died. I've had no one to rely on since. It took everything I had to survive living with that ass but I managed. Its weird thinking that I have beings that actually care about me, but the two of you are starting to prove it."
"Why did you run?" Jazz asked. Ratchet looked on confused.
"I ran because I was afraid. Much as it pains me to admit, I guess you could say I have abandonment issues. I had convinced myself you would hate me because of what I said."
"What exactly did you say?" Cahira stiffened at Ratchet's words.
Seeing this reaction he pulled her back into a hug. She mumbled something into his chest. "What was that?"
She lifted her head a bit. "I said, I still wear the mask."
It took Ratchet a moment to respond, and Cahira burried her head in his chest again.
"I didn't expect you to completely let it go that quickly. But how much of what you've done is actually you and how much is the mask?"
"I don't know." Cahira said in a small voice.
The two bots looked at each other and vowed to always be there for the little femme when she needed it.