Author's Note: So, I fell in love with Spotlight: Prowl and decided to tell the climax of the story from the perspective of Prowl's cop driver (as he is called over on TF Wiki). I've named him Officer Daniel Murphy (brownie points to whoever gets where his names come from), and I admit to taking some liberties with how much information the humans have and how much Skywatch would share with local law enforcement. Anyway, enjoy!

Continuity: IDW G1

Featured Characters: Prowl; Prowl's cop driver (Officer Murphy)

Pairings: None

Warnings: Mild language

Spotlight: Officer Murphy

Monday mornings were the pits. It always amazed Officer Daniel Murphy how some things never changed even though the rest of the world seemed to. He stood surveying the site that was being cleared for reconstruction, and lazily hummed a tune while watching two construction workers hauling away a giant, robotic hand. The hand still held a gun, but Officer Murphy didn't think that they would mess with it until Skywatch had gotten there to take it.

He thought wrong.

The blast caught him off guard. He turned wild-eyed and watched in utter horror as a newly reconstructed building came crumbling down - right on top of a young girl. "Oh God . . ." he breathed, convinced he was about to watch the girl die.

Out of the corner of his eye he detected movement. He whipped his head around and watched in utter awe and fear as a robot ran past him and pushed the girl out of the way. "Holy shit!" he cried.

He and the crowd that had gathered stood a moment staring at the giant robot that was now trapped by the fallen rubble. The robot was white and black, and it finally sunk in where he had come from. Officer Murphy walked forward cautiously, his hand on his sidearm.

"Is the girl okay?" the robot asked. His voice was actually sort of pleasant sounding, and cultured.

"Looks like bumps and bruises. You saved her life," Murphy responded, slowly taking his hand off his sidearm.

"Yes, good," the robot said softly.

Murphy put his hand on his head and gaped. "You were sitting there, hiding, for God knows how long -"

"Eight months," the robot added.

"Eight months?" Murphy asked incredulously. "Jeez . . . My captain is going to kill me." Then something occurred to Murphy as he took another step forward. "You broke cover after eight months to save that girl?"

The robot met Murphy's eyes. "Yes."

Murphy's panic started to subside. He'd been in a state of terror since seeing the building collapsing, but the robot didn't seem to be that dangerous. Hell, the robot had saved the girl, and he knew from the murmurings behind him that the robot had done it at the cost of his life. "You realize these people are going to kill you now?"

The robot took a moment to answer. "Eight months. I've been sitting and watching. Planning. Unable to do anything. I've seen so much confusion. So many things I could have done something about if I were able to break cover. My whole world is changing. Not sure who's in charge, or where we're going. But I've done the math on this planet. On all of you. And the numbers are accurate . . . But they're not right." The robot shook his head. "And this moment came where suddenly I couldn't worry any more about what might happen. Sometimes you just have to do the right thing anyway."

Murphy found himself really beginning to identify with the robot. In all of his years as a cop in New York, he'd seen so many things that he would have done differently. He'd also felt his world changing irrevocably in the months and years following the invasion. He'd been afraid of this robot when he'd first seen him, but as the robot had spoken, he'd felt a strange kinship with it. With him. Or at least . . . Officer Murphy thought it was a he.

Nonetheless, Officer Murphy had come to his decision. He grinned and nodded to the robot. "Spoken like a true beat cop."

The robot gave him a confused look on his strangely expressive face.

"Listen . . . I gotta call this in. But it looks like you're trapped, and this isn't an emergency. So I sure hope your buddies don't overhear and come and get you. Or that you manage to get free in the hour it's going to take Skywatch to get here."

The robot gave Officer Murphy a smile.

Murphy turned to the crowd. "Okay people, get back! Get back! Skywatch is on their way. Move along! This is a dangerous area now!"

As he watched the other people move away nervously after being reminded of how dangerous the robots could be, Murphy called in the disturbance and stated that backup was not necessary. The dispatch sounded unsure, but he reiterated that the robot was trapped and that it was near dead anyway. He knew that when the robot got away he was going to catch hell - maybe even lose his job if he couldn't convince his superiors that there was nothing he could have done.

"You have broken several police procedures Officer Murphy," the robot said softly.

"Yeah, well, I figure I owe you one for saving that girl," Murphy replied. He turned to stare at the robot. "What's your name? I heard you guys have names."

The robot smiled. "My chosen name is Prowl."

Murphy nodded. They waited in silence for awhile before he spoke again. "Thank you Officer Murphy."

Murphy didn't reply. He waited until a truck and a couple of cars showed up. In the safe shadows of the crumbled buildings around them the truck and cars transformed. Murphy made a great show of looking the other way while they helped Prowl out of the rubble. He didn't raise a fuss when they were gone, but when Skywatch arrived he showed off the acting skills he'd honed with a theater minor in college.

That night Officer Murphy returned home and the first thing he did was sit heavily in his recliner and sigh. He stared at the ceiling, wondering why he'd really just risked his career - and if those Skywatch baboons were to be believed, his freedom - for one of the robots. Sure, he'd felt the whole in-the-moment kinship thing with him at the time, but in hindsight that reasoning wasn't looking so great. "I guess it was just like the robot said, I did the numbers and it didn't add up."

"Add up to what sweetie?"

Murphy looked up to see his wife, Anna. "It's nothing honey."

"It is so something," Anna replied as she walked over and plopped herself in his lap. Anna was a tiny blonde woman with a huge smile. "You can tell me anything sweets."

He knew he wasn't getting out of it when she called him sweets. "I found out today that my squad car was one of those robot things."

"Oh my God!" Anna breathed. "Are you alright?!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. The robot . . . The robot saved a little girl today. That's why he broke his cover as my car. To save one little girl. I asked him why, and he said that the numbers on it all . . . they were accurate, but that they were not right. The entire time he's been with me he's want to do something, anything to help, and he finally couldn't just stand by anymore. Anna, that robot was ready to sacrifice his life for one little girl. I didn't even get her name. But I got the robot's name. He calls himself Prowl, and he thinks like me. I guess that's what bugs me. We've believed that all of the robots are dangerous, that they're all deserving of death, yet here's one robot who thinks like me, talks sort of like me, and who risked his life for one of us. Five billion humans, and according to Skywatch's information, only a few thousand of them in the whole galaxy. He's right, the numbers don't add up, but he risked himself anyway."

Anna leaned over and kissed Murphy's cheek. "Then maybe we humans need to see past our anger and fear and learn about them. If Skywatch knows roughly how many of them there are in the galaxy then they must know which robots are deadly and which are not. I do not think that we should relax our guards and be nonchalant about them because there still have to be some that do not like humans, but I am open to the idea that some of the robots are good at heart, for lack of a better term."

"But why? Why stay on a planet that hates them all?" Murphy murmured.

"Maybe they have no where else to go. Maybe they want to atone. We may never really know," Anna replied sounding like the elementary school teacher she was.

"We should though. It's not right for Prowl to be slotted under the same heading as some of those murderous robots. It's like treating a cop who saved an innocent civilian like a criminal."

Anna kissed his cheek. "Perhaps you should look for people who feel sort of the way you do. Maybe you can change something."

"You may have something there," he replied smiling. "Come on, what's for supper?"

Officer Murphy continued on as before, but every day he thought about Prowl when he watched robots being hauled out of broken buildings in pieces. He thought about how maybe some of those dead robots had been the good guys. Rumors abounded after the end of the invasion of a band of robots who had fought the invaders. Had this robot been one of them? Had Prowl?

Uncertainty is like a virus, but sometimes the journey through the illness can make a person stronger. Officer Murphy made up his mind to not listen to the fear that ruled the human race and clouded their thinking. Evil did not infect an entire race. Even though the humans had seen the evil first, the good had still come to their aid. Murphy would wait for the day that his fellows would see that. He didn't have to wait that long for others to begin to see.