Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, other people do. I make no money out of this.

A/N: Some references to G1, but it's still movie based.

Chance Encounters

He was the traitor. The one everyone suspected. The one everyone thought of first when someone needed to be blamed. The one no one trusted. The one no one called when they needed help. He knew it. Learned to live with it. Had, in fact, learned to enjoy it.

At least that's what he told himself. He was so good at lying; he suspected he'd learned to lie to himself. He never analyzed that thought process further. Better to lie to yourself than letting the truth hurt him.

He believed in his cause. He believed in the superiority of his faction. He believed they could win this stupid war. He just didn't believe in Megatron anymore. Going missing only made him hate his leader more. The slagger abandoned them to die while he searched for the Allspark. And what little respect and obedience had remained, was forcefully erased from his processor as the truth behind his disappearance was revealed.

Ice.

Solid H2O in lower temperature. That was all that had held the mighty Megatron trapped for millennia. What had turned the great Lord High Protector into a laboratory turborat. He had left the slagger to die. He had better things to do with his life than stay and protect a relic of a once great leader.

Unfortunately, that pathetic little bunch of organics came with not so pathetic and quite painful sabot rounds. He'd researched them as soon as Scorponok had told them what had happened to his tail. He still laughed at the drone's misfortune. Or he would've laughed if he could've. He'd been shot and had barely managed to escape. Primus smiled on him once more, validating his existence and purpose.

Days went by and his injuries slowly repaired themselves. There were still some injuries, glitches and errors, but he would survive. He would live. He would come back.

And once he felt better, he took to the skies once more. He needed to search for survivors. Using their comms didn't work and Starscream was beginning to believe it had nothing to with his injuries. Unfortunately, his plans crashed along with him. The fall injuring him even more and making him cry out in pain. He'd transformed back into his regular mode and began assessing the damage, when it appeared.

A frail looking adult human female. She simply walked into his line of sight as she came out of the small forest he crashed into. For a few seconds they just stared at each other in silence. He was actually considering squashing her right now, paintjob be damned. It wasn't as if he was in prime condition anyways.

"Oh my God, you're one of them!" she exclaimed and Starscream's murdering thoughts left him for a moment.

"One of them?"

"Yes! Oh, Sammy has told me so much about you all. I'm sorry for trying to send that Bumblebee away, but I was trying to protect him," she continued, and apparently this Sammy was friends with the Autobots. He was so slagged when they arrive here. What a pathetic way for the Air Commander to die.

"Oh, but you crashed. Are you okay? I didn't know you could also transform into planes. I don't remember much of what he said, beyond thirty foot tall robots and his new car being one."

And he was beginning to wonder if they had an off button somewhere. The femme just kept going on and on. Primus! Let a mech die in peace, at least. She didn't even wait for him to answer the questions.

"I'm pretty sure it feels nice to fly. I always wanted to fly when I was a kid. I wonder, if you already can fly, does that mean you wanted to be a car when you were a little kid. Do you even have kids?" she continued obliviously, and Starscream felt like screaming. Only that would attract more attention and with his current luck, it would be an Autobot or another talkative human.

He moved, a screeching sound filled the air and he winced in pain. Great! More work for his internal repairs. At least the sound shut her up. She was staring at him with her optics wide open and radiating concern for him. This was new for the Decepticon.

"Do you want me to call Sam and tell him to get the others here for you? That didn't sound so good."

"No. Don't call them. They are busy right now and I don't want to bother them," he lied and he felt stupid at how silly it sounded. At least the human seemed to believe him as she stayed where she was.

"Aren't you far away from the city, erhm…" he stopped and looked at her.

"Judy. Judy Witwicky. Sam's mother. Thought you robots all knew me by now," she made a little sound, laughter he reminded himself.

"I just arrived," he lied again, "They told me they were busy and to make my way to the base when I crashed."

"Oh, you poor plane. I was waiting for Ron, my husband, to come pick me up when I heard the crash. Are you sure you're okay? Can I help you?" she asked and Starscream hesitated.

She seemed so sincere it was disconcerting to him. No one trusted him. No one believed him. Yet, here she was, a little organic thing that didn't even reach his ankle joints, standing closer to him than any other and worried about him.

"Internal repairs will take care of everything. There's nothing else to do but wait."

"Oh…" she remained silent for a long moment. Only to turn around and leave without another word. Humans were so fragging strange.

Four hours later, Starscream was bored to the Pit. He'd already checked his Diagnostics and had verified the repairs had been done correctly this time. He even found the reason he crashed and had fixed it. He would be able to fly tomorrow and he was going crazy here.

A rustling sound came to his audios. Another slagging creature that would most likely want to settle inside of him.

"Good, you haven't left. I didn't want to explain Ron why I was going back after I told him I was going to spend the night out."

"What?" he turned, only to find the same human femme, Judy, staring at him. She was carrying a lot of bags.

"I told Ron I was going to stay with Karen. She's a friend of mine. She's going through a bad divorce and I stay with her sometimes," she started organizing her things.

"I hate using her to cover for me, but I couldn't go and tell Ron about you. He isn't too happy with Sam and you guys."

"What are you doing?"

"Making a camp. I can't stay the night without a proper camp built. Oh, I remember when I was in the girl scouts. I looked forward to these camping trips."

"Why are you here?"

"Because I'm not leaving you. Not while you're hurt anyways."

And it hurt. To know that only a squishy would dare do something like that for him, hurt. And not any human, but the mother of an Autobot friend.

"So you never told me. Do you guys have kids? Did you dream of being a car or some other ground vehicle? Do you even dream?" the femme began questioning.

As the night wore on, Starscream found himself answering the silly questions and even asking questions of his own about humans and their strange customs. It was different. It was strange. And while he still didn't like humans, Judy was tolerable.

He watched, amused, as she denied her recharge cycle in favor of asking him more questions. In the end, her programming won and she simply slipped into recharge. He watched her silently.

Tomorrow he would be gone. Back to being a Decepticon in a place where there were no others except him. He wasn't going to bother going back to Cybertron for reinforcements. Shockwave would rather do the 'logical' thing and kill him. No, he wasn't going back. He would remain here and build a base. He would wait for the other Decepticons to arrive and he will receive them.

And maybe, he would take time to see this human, Judy, again. The only one in the entire universe that dared trust the Air Commander of the Decepticon Army. Because he'd been around long enough to see through lies. And she had lied to him. The only reason she didn't tell anyone was because she knew. She knew what he was and she still came. She knew and she still trusted him. And Starscream found himself trusting her in return.

Edited: 2/16/09