And I think with this chapter I am caught up to date with my chapter a week posting speed! Yes! And I'm halfway through Chapter 16! Expect it soonish!
Many thanks to my awesome beta Khalthar for helping me out!
The rest of the thankyous have been relocated to the end of the chapter seeing as the list has become massive and takes up almost a page by itself.. But don't fear I still love all of you!
Word count is in at 2089
Chapter 15: Almost Normal
~x~
~Cassie~
~x~
Lennox and Epps had taken her on a tour of the base while Sam got saddled with taking care of her bags. It hadn't surprised her that Sam had told them about her supposedly being crazy... Another mark against him on her revenge list.
However Ratchet had already spoken to them at length to ignore what Sam had said. Upon seeing the somewhat stormy look on her face, Lennox had laughed and told her that everyone had their own right to be a little crazy and that they knew better than to make assumptions.
Over the course of an hour and half later she had seen the better part of the base, met Figg, who gotten into a rapid round of Spanish with her (much to the dismay of Lennox and Epps), and had ran into a slightly grumpy Ratchet who confiscated her and hauled her off to the Med Bay. Jazz had opted for hunting down O.P. and shadowing him in lieu of going to the Hatchet's kingdom.
Which where she was currently sitting listening to Crescent sing 99 Bottles of Whatever on the Wall…
Why does he keep looking at me like that?
"Like what?" Crescent blinked from Cassie to Ratchet's holoform. Said holoform was currently engaged in tapping her sister's vein.
Like I'm something he hasn't seen before.
"He looks appreciative if you ask me." Crescent commented as he finished taping the bandage on her arm. Crescent draped herself around her shoulders. "At least consider this; he hasn't thrown a wrench at you yet... Jazz says he always threatens people with his wrench. Even Sam."
Yeah... I don't have any plans of getting hit by that thing. Cassie watched the holoform walk over to his bot mode and place the fragile tubes into his servo before it flickered away into a shower of blue sparkles. "So... um... why did you need a blood sample?"
"I like know that all of my patients are perfectly healthy." Ratchet commented as he turned away from her.
"Oh." was Cassie's quiet response.
Several minutes passed before Ratchet turned and glanced down at her once more. "Are you aware that your electromagnetic field is significantly more defined than most humans?"
Cassie shook her head. Ratchet hmmed again before a blue flash of light and an accompanying tingling sensation ran across her body. She shivered.
"That felt weird..."
Wait you felt that?
"Hm..."
Cassie raised a brow as he frowned down at her. Okay... I'm getting tired of hearing 'hm'. The scan ran across her again. Crescent growled as she detached herself from Cassie. "I'm getting tired of that damned scanner... Mind telling Bones to stop it already."
I am not calling him Bones.
"Why? From what I've seen and what Jazz has told me, he acts just like Doc McCoy from Star Trek." She said before growling as a third one ran over them again.
Crescent... Cassie vented a sigh through her nose as she turned her gaze back onto Ratchet.
"Are you two done arguing?" the neon medic asked with a quirk of his own optical ridge.
"No."
"Yes." Cassie shot a glare at the spirit.
"I would like to run a deeper scan on you and Crescent... Mainly Crescent. But I wanted your consent first."
"Hell no. The first one itched as it is."
"Um..."
"Would it help to mention that your field was certainly different on the third time?"
Cassie frowned. "Crescent was hanging on to me until your third scan... She said that she could feel it... Which is weird since she really can't feel anything being well... you know."
"Unless I posses you..."
Please don't even think about that.
"Hm..."
"I suppose you could do the scan... though I have to warn you that Crescent's making a run for it." Cassie said as she noted that her sister had bolted for the door.
"See ya later!"
Ratchet shook his head with a sigh. "I'm surprised that you even agreed. Most of the people I treat -bots and humans alike- fight me or in the very least complain."
"Self preservation. I don't want to get whacked by that wrench of yours."
"Finally someone with common sense."
Cassie snorted. "Oh yes, the crazy one is the one who has common sense."
"You are not insane Cassandra, just very misunderstood."
Cassie smiled sadly. "Ain't that the truth... but... you have to remember that there is a fine line between sanity and Insanity. And everyone has just a touch of Insanity. Mine just happens to be in the form of my dead twin sister."
~x~
~Bee~
~x~
It was dinner time, and Cassie had gone to grab herself another glass of milk. Giving Sam the prime opportunity to slip half a bottle of habanero sauce into her tomato soup and stir it up. He snickered quietly to himself as Bee shot him a "Really?" look.
"Not a word or I will not wash you."
Bee raised a brow. "Cassie gives a better wash and wax than you do anyways." He added seriously.
"Come on Bee, I've got to get ahead while I can. Now shush." Sam glared just before Cassie plopped down in her seat.
Bee sighed and took a swig of his energon.
"Okay I've got to ask, what is in the bottle? I never see you eat anything." Cassie pointed at his bottle. He cringed as she took a spoonful of her soup and breathed on it to cool it. Like that will really help...
"This is energon." Bee said as she popped the spoon in her mouth. Her eyes widened a fraction before glancing at her cousin who was smirking at her. Cassie shrugged and gathered another spoonful much to Sam's disappointment.
"Okay... So what is energon?"
"It's what powers our fuel cells. It is also our life blood. I drink it to power my nanites that I use to create the holoform."
Cassie was halfway through the soup with no sing of stopping. Sideswipe slipped into the chair next to her. "Hey what's up?"
"Not much. So Bee... Have you guys tried eating human food?"
Bee smiled sadly. "It's a no go. Anything we 'try' has to be purged because our systems can't process the food. Though it would be nice to try some things... Maybe when Wheeljack gets here he can fine tune the holoforms..."
"Imagine it... Ice cream..." Sideswipe said with a dreamy look in his eyes.
"Cake..."
"Candy..."
"Cookies..."
Cassie raised a brow before placing her hands in her lap. "Like Ratchet would let you guys even touch the stuff. He seems like he'd be a sugar Nazi. You should stick to natural stuff like apples and strawberries. They're sweet and good."
All three of them stared at her. "There is something seriously wrong with you Cassie." Sam deadpanned.
"Forgive me for eating healthy Samuel. Oh and nice touch with the hot sauce, I thought the soup was a little bland."
"I knew I should have used the whole bottle." Sam grumbled as she stuck her tongue out. He cursed a second later as something soft smacked harshly into his forehead and stuck there. "What the..." Sam crossed his eyes as he tried to look at the thing. He frowned and tried to yank on the thing only to hiss in pain. He glanced at Cassie in time to have another projectile seal itself to his nose.
Epps, Figg, and Lennox happened to be walking by at that moment in time, and all three took one look at Sam before bursting out laughing. Sam Growled before sucking it up and ripping the object from his forehead to stare at... "A tampon? Argh!" he yelled as he yanked the one on his nose off. Both were soon replaced and accompanied by five more before Cassie bolted from the table laughing her head off.
"Have fun Samuel!"
"CASSIE!"
"Whoa! An' here I thought Hide was a good shot!" Epps exclaimed with a wide grin.
Figg's eyes shot wide open before his knees buckled and he fell to the floor because he was laughing so hard.
Lennox took a look at Sam's face with tampons now super glued to his chin, each cheek, his nose, one in the center of his forehead, and one above each eyebrow before he started chocking, coughing, and struggling with laughter at the same time. It took him a minute before he could speak. "Sam… never get into a shooting match with her. You'll lose… badly!" Before he couldn't hold it back any longer and actually howled with laughter himself.
~x~
~Cassie~
~x~
She was leaning against hangar wall staring up at the Nevadan sky. The sky was much clearer here than it was in Detroit... The view was both breath taking and saddening... She missed the view of the city lights from both Detroit and Windsor... The hum of the city underneath everything, out here the noise was down to a minimum. The only real noise coming from the occasional patrol. She wasn't certain if she hated or liked the silence.
The sound of a vehicle pulling up caught her attention. She glanced over to see the large black Topkick parked not too far away from her. "Hello Ironhide." She said before returning her gaze skyward.
"Shouldn't you be in recharge youngling?"
"I should, but I'm not now am I?" she said a small smile gracing her lips. "I wanted to take advantage of this." She waved her hand outwards. "I don't think I've ever seen so many stars in one sitting before... I couldn't pass this up."
The truck shifted into his bipedal mode before settling next to the tiny human. They sat in silence for sometime before Ironhide spoke up, "I heard about that gun you made. I thought it to be cute."
"Samuel deserved it."
"He deserved having feminine hygiene products glued to his face?" Amused blue optics glanced downward at her.
Cassie sighed. "You go spreading crap around about a gal and tell me what you expect from her."
"Hm... I suppose you are right." He said after a minute of mulling it over. Several more minutes of stargazing passed before he asked, "How good of a shot are you?"
Cassie blinked up at the bot. "Point blank? I'm good. Distance? I suck. My instructor Reggie said I was almost hopeless with how bad I was."
"I thought you were home schooled."
"I was. But my dad was kind of took me to work with him to teach me. One of the desk lieutenants, Reggie found me in the garage one day and told my dad, 'This kid needs exercise'. Next thing I know she's kicking my ass into the mats and teaching me aikido. She kind of looked out for me on the days my dad had to go out on patrol. My dad taught me karate and the brute force stuff... I was supposed to register myself this month for my license." she bit her lip as she smiled at the memory of the day she had face planted her dad into the mat. He had been so proud of her on that day... that he promptly went another round and paid her back.
"Driver's license?"
Cassie smirked up at the bot. "Oh no. I already got that... Once you reach a certain degree in martial arts you're supposed to register your hands as lethal weapons." She glanced at her hands. "Like I really could get the gumption up to kill someone... now beat them to a bloody pulp that I could do easily... But kill?" She shook her head.
"You'd be surprised at what you will do to survive kid." Ironhide said. "Take a look at Optimus. Before the war he was a data clerk... A librarian."
Cassie's eyes widened as she was floored by that statement. "No way."
Ironhide chuckled. "I used to be a dock worker. Ratchet was a senator. Bee... he was just a sparkling when the youth sectors were bombed..."
"And Sideswipe?"
Ironhide remained silent for several minutes before quietly saying, "The twins... Their past... it wasn't pretty. That is for him and his twin to tell. "
"Oh..."
Several minutes passed while the two of them turned their gazes back up to the sky. "Did you really mean to teach me how to shoot?"
"If you'd like me to."
"I think I would like that." Cassie said as she met his optics. "So... whereabouts is Cybertron?"
"Well you see that space right there..."
-.-? The last part was going to be Sam setting up his next prank but Ironhide just shoved him aside to the next chapter...
...
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