Bravura's back in this chap :) Thanks for the reviews, you lovely lovely reviewers, you :)

It had been nearly three weeks since Bravura the human had ended, and Hotrod was more anxious than ever. Neither Perceptor nor Ratchet had predicted that her chest would refuse to close up and protect her delicate spark. She'd grown in leaps and bounds, tapering off at about nine feet from tip to tip, but the steady glow of her spark shining from her chest had worried them for weeks. Overnight, finally, her chest had grown together, shutting her spark safely away from the world.

He'd finally made his decision about her memories. The memories she had made after the amnesia were the primary set, and that was the one her consciousness would have automatic access to. The rest of her past was going into another file that he would tuck away with a multitude of other pieces of information. He would tell her about it, when she'd accepted her new body, and she'd have the choice of looking at them or not.

"What's the verdict, Ratch?"

"If you ask me, I say she's ready. Perceptor still thinks we should wait, but seeing as I'm the CMO and he's just the scientist!" Ratchet raised his voice just enough to be sure that Perceptor heard from his adopted worktable in the sick bay, "I'd say you can import her mind and memories whenever you're ready. Optimus is going to forego watching her wake up, since I feel that fewer mechs in the room will be less intimidating."

Hotrod nodded absently, leaning back on the exam table in Ratchet's sickbay. He could bring her back today -a thrill shot through his spark at the thought- and they could start their new life together.

"Now, Ratchet. Can I bring her back now?"

Ratchet eyed the reckless younger mech. "Are you sure you're ready? You know you'll be her primary caretaker. She's mentally an adult, but the control she'll have over her body could be as bad as a sparkling's and her size will make her twice as dangerous. You've been carrying her memories for cycles; you're most qualified to adjust her to this. Can you support her emotionally when she finds out she's no longer a member of her own species?"

Hotrod nodded very seriously. As far he was concerned she was his spark mate, though every other mech on the base seemed to have doubts. Skywarp was the only one who'd denied it outright, but he was a jealous fragger. She'd never told the Seeker she loved him.

"I can do it, Ratchet. I know you're worried I want to wake her for selfish reasons, but there's no point in dragging this out any longer. You already convinced Dicer she died for real this time, and none of the other humans know her enough to put it together. We're all just stalling now because we know it'll be tough. She's missing out on living every second we waste!"

Ratchet put up with Hotrod's righteous delivery up to that point, then put up his hands as if to fend the Vanquish off. "Fine, fine! Wait here, I'll bring her out. Clear off that exam table, would you?" And then the medic had disappeared into the back room.

Hotrod locked up for a half a moment, then quickly grabbed up the scattered tools on the bench and shoved them into what had been a meticulously organized cabinet up until then.

The minute it took Ratchet to gather her up was plenty of time for Hotrod to be struck by an incredibly uncommon case of insecurity. He knew Bravura and Camilla Phillips intimately; rather, he knew their memories intimately. He still didn't know what she'd do when she woke up. She'd never woken up to a new existence so literally before.

And then Ratchet was carrying her gleaming body through the door and out into the sickbay. He couldn't take his eyes away, despite the disturbing way her head was hanging back without support. Her youngling patterns had grown into a full set of light armor, the kind civilians usually wore… Back when Cybertron had any civilians. She'd filled out, but she was still on the light side. The plate armor helped, but she only looked like a smoothed out Frenzy on a grander scale. Then again, Hotrod was used to the bulked out appearance an alt mode gave a bot, and she didn't have one.

The resemblance to Frenzy had sparked a few interesting conversations between Ratchet and Perceptor. Frenzy had been a huge mech, back in his sane days, before the madness inflicted by the enemy had given him a complete disregard for his own health. They wondered if she'd someday grow into something like a female Frenzy, bigger than Ironhide, or if she'd simply reach average femme height and stop there.

Perceptor had pointed out a small possible problem involving her apparent relation to Frenzy. She had essentially the same metallic makeup as the little Decepticon. Was his madness inherent in his hardware, or a product of his warring servos?

Ratchet lowered the femme to the bench with great care, the metals clinking together quietly. He reached over her chest and released the locking mechanism, exposing her spark to open air once again. Just below her spark case was her central interface, where he'd have access to her memory core.

As the Vanquish stepped closer, Ratchet stepped away, taking up a post near Perceptor, who was watching intently. Hotrod leaned over Bravura's still body, taking courage. It wasn't something he was used to doing. He reached down and touched her face, tracing the lines. The pulsing of her spark drew his attention, and he saw that it was practically leaping in its case. He chuckled, the enthusiasm settling his nerves. He withdrew the connecter from his wrist and leaned in, sliding it into her port. He located her memory core, and then let the rush of memory flow away from him and back into its rightful owner.

Waking up had never been so easy before. It seemed that I went from the best sleep of my life to complete awareness in seconds, eyes wide open. I was immediately drawn to the blue glow above me and saw that it was from Hotrod. I tried to smile, but my face felt too stiff to really grin the way I wanted to. As I watched him, he seemed to be leaning closer, until I was sure he'd start to squash me, but it never happened. My vision continued to focus in on his blue eyes and I began to panic. The separate parts of his optics were becoming clear to me, the minute detail of the metal around them suddenly huge in my vision. It was like watching a camera zoom in.

I gasped and covered my eyes in shock. It had only taken seconds to literally fall into his gaze. I heard a clank as my hand lightly slapped my cheeks and eyebrows.

"Hotrod?" I asked tentatively.

"Yes," he said, as if he were nervous.

"I don't feel right." It was true, I felt different… Alive, vital, bursting with energy… But I was beginning to feel things happening I didn't understand. It was like twitching my fingertips, feeling these parts of my body. As I twitched one of my mental fingertips I suddenly received a flood of information, numbers and random words and images and I whimpered, twitching the finger again to make it go away

The whimper came out sounding strange. Metallic.

That was when I pulled my hands away from my eyes and really looked. My fingers gleamed in the light, and I realized I didn't just feel strange. Something strange was happening to me. I flexed my hands and saw them curl responsively. They were shining like metal. I looked down at myself and started screaming, my fear so strong that I almost immediately forgot why I was screaming.

I was cut off when a pair of soft arms encircled me and lifted me slightly, holding me up to their chest. I pushed hard, but ineffectively, trying to get away. My heart felt like it would explode, as if it were pushing out past my chest… and then I felt something that shut out my fear and my thoughts. Everything fizzled away in the feeling - and then it was gone. Something pressed my chest shut, a feeling I never thought I would've been alive to experience, and then I was laying flat again. I had the strangest idea that I should feel violated, and it was quickly confirmed.

"What the hell are you doing?!" A sharp metal crack, scuffling. I realized my eyes were closed, and I opened them. I immediately caught the error in my thinking; they weren't opening. They were turning on.

Hotrod's voice responded. "She panicked, didn't you see her spark? It was the easiest-"

"The easy way isn't the right way this time, dim-spark! She's vulnerable, she's scared, and you go trying to… What were you thinking?!" Another resounding clang, and I realized that the other voice was Ratchet as my eyes automatically focused on the two forms, the large yellow one between me and Hotrod, who was peeking around to look at me.

I slowly sat up, testing my body. I had metal hands. My eyes didn't work right. I was psychic, or insane, seeing images in my head. I froze halfway up as my body screeched against the table and both the mechs turned to look at me. Ratchet turned back on Hotrod immediately, pointing to the door.

"Out. I should never have trusted you with this. You're too young, still can't control yourself."

"Ratchet, no, you can't be ser-"

"I'm dead serious soldier, now get out before you discover why they call me The Hatchet. OUT!"

Hotrod backed away from the bigger mech slowly, eyes on me the whole time. Then he turned and left, slumping in defeat.

Ratchet turned back to me, sizing me up. "You don't understand, do you?"

I shook my head, sat up completely and let my legs hang off the edge of the table. I looked down and remembered why I panicked. I didn't have metal hands, I had metal everything.

"Look at me, Bravura," Ratchet directed. I slowly looked by up, my fear a cold spike through my chest. "What's the last thing you remember?" He turned away, grabbing a stool that would've dwarfed even the tallest human and sitting, forcing me to look down slightly to make eye contact with him from my perch on the table.

I thought about it. I remembered Zeke, and the pain. Oh, yes, I remembered the pain. I remembered Hotrod talking to me, crying, and saying… Then…

"Hotrod was afraid I would die from the metal, and reminded of a promise, and… some other things. Then the pain went away and I woke up."

Ratchet nodded. "A lot of things have happened since then. You've been asleep for three weeks. Hotrod used his own spark to create one for you, though he didn't know what he was doing at the time. He and Perceptor preserved your memories, as it was clear that your human body could no longer be salvaged."

I stared, and I felt my eyes' focus narrowing in on his face again, so I 'zoomed out' back to normal. "You mean that this –metal- all over me, is," I shuddered emphatically, "me?"

Ratchet nodded. "You're essentially Cybertronian. Readings classify you as neutral, so you're neither Autobot nor Decepticon. That's a choice you'd have to make."

"I'm a mech?"

Ratchet gave me an amused look. "No, technically you're a femme. Mechs refer to males, though you couldn't know that, never having met a femme."

"I don't…" It felt like my mind was running over the same thing over and over. I'm a robot. I'm not human. I'm something I shouldn't be. I'm a robot. "Ratchet, I don't-"

"Bravura," he began, "I want you to listen to me. Every single Autobot on this base is behind you. We felt responsible for your wellbeing before, but understand, you are our own kind now. I'm here for you, Optimus is here for you… Even Ironhide has helped a few bots through hard times. You have no need to fear."

I was listening with one part of my mind, and still freaking out in another. Yet another piece of me wanted to slap Hotrod across the face for some mysterious reason, and even still, I wanted to find him and get him to hold me like that again…

I looked back down at my gleaming hand. As I turned it in the light, I caught sight of my Decepticon tattoo, now rising up in sharp edges from the smooth metal of my wrist. I tilted my wrist to Ratchet, and he answered my unspoken question.

"A throwback from your human body. It would have probably happened to any tattoo you had, it's not representative of your affiliations. It can be sanded off easily, which I advise we do soon, being in a military base run by these trigger happy humans…"

It almost sounded like he was confiding to me a distaste for my people in that statement, or maybe just their ignorance. Like he'd already forgotten what I was supposed to be, what I still was on the inside.

A more rational part of me denied this thinking. Ratchet doesn't have any bad feelings for humans. They are a little quick on the draw, you know that from personal experience. He's only being honest, and you would do well to quit judging people so negatively.

I rubbed my face, overwhelmed. Neither my hands nor my face felt hard, but the soft grinding noises said otherwise. "It's like there are two people in my head, Ratchet. Normal me, and know-it-all me."

Through a gap in my fingers, I saw him nod. "Your logic processors. You'll get used to them, they're just made to force you to see things from a slightly different angle. It tends to help in most situations."

The part of me that wanted to both sweet talk and berate Hotrod was beginning to frustrate me, so I looked down at my lap again. "What was Hotrod doing to me when you started yelling at him?"

Ratchet looked a little embarrassed for the first time ever in my experience. "He… Hotrod was… you see… He was trying to calm you by spark bonding with you."

"Why is part of me so mad about it?"

Ratchet nodded slowly. "Spark bonding is rather like human mating. He was becoming intimate with you without your permission."

If I could've blushed I would've. Hotrod had been trying to get busy with me on the table while Ratchet watched. Not just Ratchet, my logic processors added dryly. I looked around, realizing it was true. I'd felt him all along, but I hadn't put together what I was sensing. He was watching while pretending to work on some doodad on his table.

"Who's that mech?" I asked, tilting my head to the blue and red mech hunched over the table across the room.

"Perceptor. He was instrumental in saving your memories."

"Oh. I guess I should thank him some time." I rubbed my face again, slumping. "I'm getting tired all the sudden. What's this…?" A flashing red had appeared. I could see it, but it wasn't actually in my field of vision. Like I had two sets of eyes, the normal pair, and one set looking into a dark room with tiny lights all over. "Flashing red stuff?"

Ratchet got up and pointed his hand at me, which had sprouted several gadgets. I flinched, halfway expecting to feel some serious pain, but nothing happened and I slowly relaxed.

Finally he nodded and withdrew his tools. "You're low on energon, I forgot to give you a boost before we woke you. We'll start you on some low grade." The bigger mech went to a large humming stainless steel box resembling a fridge, and opened it. A white glow came from inside, then Ratchet pulled out a cube that looked small in his hands. He brought it to me, holding it out, and I took it tentatively. It was quite large in mine. I stared at it, not knowing what to do with it.

"I'm sure you want some time to rest and think things through. We've outfitted a room for you. I'll have Mirage show you to it when you're done, alright?" He waited for me to nod, then continued. "If Hotrod tries to talk to you, Mirage will have orders from me to make him keep his distance."

"Do you really think you need to do that?"

"Do you want him to try to bond with you in public again?"

I shook my head, stunned. Hotrod wouldn't do that. Maybe not a second time, anyway.