Chapter 4: Missing!

Hey it's Firefly95 with the next chapter of Love, Maybe. I have been throwing around ideas for this chapter for a while, which may be why I didn't do so well on that math quiz, oopsies. I'm not sure exactly how long I'm going to make Love, Maybe, but I'm definitely going to try to keep it under 10 chapters, I guess.

Whoa, this chapter is WAAAAY over due! I should have finished it about a month ago, but my teachers must all have thought it would be funny to give me a whole crapload of homework every day!

Disclaimer: in case you haven't figured it out, I am not rich and I don't own Transformers Animated, but I do own, unfortunately, a lot of unfinished homework at the moment, as well as my OCs Firefly, Silver Angel, and Prowess.

When Silver Angel walked into the Earth stationed Autobot's base with Bulkhead close behind her, she could immediately sense something was wrong.

She looked around not really seeing anything that seemed off, but knew better than to just wave the feeling off, thinking she was just nervous about being in a new place. After all, she had lived nearly her whole life with a certain purple and silver femme whose idea of funny was replacing all of the cleaning fluid in the wash racks with an unappealing shade of pink paint. She had long since learned to trust her instincts when it came to Fire.

She smiled in a bemused way, as unpredictable as Firefly tended to be, she wouldn't have her any other way.

"What's wrong?" Bulkhead asked, seeing the way the silver femme stopped so abruptly.

Silver Angel glanced at him, getting a warm, fuzzy feeling at the truly concerned look on his face. Primus he was cute when he looked at her like that! "Oh, nothing, I just got a strange sensation when I walked in." Seeing the confused look on his face, she quickly changed the subject. "So, where is my room?"

Bulkhead smiled brightly at her and taking her hand without noticing he had done so He started to lead her in the direction of her room, when realization of the fact that he was holding her hand hit him. Blushing madly, he released her hand, muttering an embarrassed "sorry."

She smiled gently and retook his hand in hers, "Oh, I don't mind, I kind of like it."

His faceplates became hot as she held his hand tightly. "Your room is at the end of this hallway here."

He started to lead her down it when she put her hand on his huge arm. "It's ok; I think I've got it from here." She gave him one last smile before heading down the hallway toward the rooms at the end of the hall he had mentioned.

Despite her brief moment with Bulkhead, the nagging feeling in her spark that something was wrong still hadn't gone away, which worried her quite a bit.

She arrived at the end of the hallway just in time to see Firefly leave one room and head purposefully toward the room that was the furthest toward the end. She could feel Firefly's frustration coming off of her in waves and could see her doorwings twitching slightly, the way they did after a certain type of argument with Prowess. "Oh no, she DIDN'T" Angel thought angrily, she left the two alone for what? Three megacycles, and Firefly had managed to start that again! Right after they arrived in a new place too!

Growling softly, she walked faster and caught Firefly by the arm, and spun the other femme around to face her. "You brought it up again, didn't you?" she demanded.

Surprise flickered through Firefly's sapphire optics for a nano-klik, before her optics began blazing again. "Butt out of it for once in your life Angel!" Firefly snapped.

Silver Angel flinched slightly, Firefly was well known for her sharp glossa, but that was just plain mean! "I wouldn't have to butt into it if you would stop bringing it up! Its obvious Prowess doesn't want to talk about her past! So why don't you just drop it!" She growled.

Firefly's optics burned with fury, "You need to stop trying to baby Prowess! She's a big girl and doesn't need anyone to fight her battles for her!" Firefly's voice quieted a bit "You can't protect her from her past Angel, no matter how much you want to." Taking a step toward Angel, she continued, "You know that the longer she keeps it bottled up, the more distrustful she's bound to become."

Silver Angel sighed, she knew Firefly was right. She knew she was trying to protect Prowess from something she simply couldn't, but she just didn't want to see Prowess hurt anymore, the little femme had been through enough as it was. Firefly was also right about Prowess keeping all her feelings inside; it would be like continuing to fill an already full energon cube with energon. It some point, it would have to break, or worse, explode.

Reluctantly, she said, "You're right; she has to let it out before it really hurts her."

Firefly smiled softly, "Thanks Angel, I promise I'll try to make it as painless as possible." With that, she started toward Prowess's room again, leaving Angel to stare after her, wondering if this really was the right thing to do.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned to see Optimus looking at her with a worried expression. "We heard shouting, is everything ok?"

She smiled gently, "I think so, we just had a small disagreement."

The corners of Optimus lip components twitched slightly in a smile. "A rather loud one, hm?"

She started to say something else to the Autobot leader when she heard Firefly's panicky shout, "ANGEL! SHE'S GONE!"

Angel's optics widened and she turned to Optimus to find him with the same expression. Turning back to Firefly, who was in full panic mode, she said, "Are you sure? Maybe she is just hiding in there."

Firefly shook her head, "No, I gave her room a complete scan, her energy signature was definitely not there."

Angel turned to Optimus, who said, "I'll alert the others."

He turned and ran to the common room with the two femmes hot on his heels.

"Autobots!" He commanded, "We have a missing femme."

The others turned and looked at him in a mixture of shock, surprise, and skepticism.

"Are you completely sure?" Ratchet asked narrowing his optics

Firefly nodded vigorously, "I gave her room a complete scan. She is definitely not there."

As the others asked her questions, Prowl silently pondered to himself; with him meditating so close to the main exit, there was absolutely no way she had gotten past him. After all, if he could hear Bulkhead shift positions, or Ratchet's joints creak, or even Bumblebee scratch his cheek, he could definitely hear a femme try to sneak past him. The only other exit he knew of was the one in his room, and he doubted she knew about that one.

That femme was still in this base, most likely, even more likely, still in her room. Something Firefly had undoubtedly forgotten was that most all cyber ninjas that finished their training were updated with an energy signature scrambler, and the femme ninja had used that to give her friend the slip. Why, he had no idea, but he intended to find out, and to do that, he needed the others out of the base.

"What do you think Prowl?" He heard Optimus ask.

Clearing his throat, he asked, "Sir?"

Optimus repeated, "What do you think we should do?" Prowl could have smiled! This was perfect!

"I think you should probably fan out and scan the area around the base, she can't have gone far." He said, and then added quickly, "I can stay here and monitor Teletraan-1 to see if it picks up anything."

Optimus nodded, "Good thinking Prowl." Then turning to the others he commanded, "You know the plan Autobots, now, roll out and let's find that femme!"

Sorry, I know this is pretty short, but I had to cut it in half because it was REALLY long and I'm going to upload the next half tomorrow maybe.

This chapter and the next chapter (since they kinda go together) are dedicated to my best buddy and fellow author, Trackster. Seriously people, she rocks!