Mikaela stayed inside the base for the next four days, waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

Who was to say that Megatron was lying? Who was to say that, this whole time, he had been sitting back and lying the entire time, the motion of rescuing her father not even at the bottom of his list?

No one. Therefore, that was why Mikaela had to wait with, metaphorically, since Cybertronians's didn't really breathe, baited breath.

Four days.

On the fourth day, while she was trudging down the base, her shoulder plates having eased into a permanent hunch, her audio receptors picked up a commotion coming from the base's front gates. Following the sound, Mikaela crept along the walls, towards the main entrance, where she saw a cluster of guards trying to restrain a dirty, raggedy-looking human who was shouting out obscenities.

Mikaela recognized the voice. If she had been human, still, her stomach would have been doing flips.

"Dad?" she breathed.

Megatron had pulled through after all. The murderously insane Decepticon had actually pulled through with the deal.

Mikaela stepped out of the shadows, and immediately, the guards eased back, all eyes on her tall frame. It was a gesture displayed around all the Autobots. Mikaela had seen many times, but never from this point of view.

"What seems to be the problem?"

The man looked up, wrenching out of the guards grasp. His clothes were torn, his hair filthy and matted, but there was no mistaking those lips, that hair and nose and eyes….

"Mikaela?"

"Long time, no see," Mikaela tried to hide her delight, but a small smile was beginning to tug at the corners of her lip plates. Her father recognized her, and that was enough. "I see you've escaped?"

"I did more than escape," her father replied, brushing dirt off his shoulder. "Fisher had a change of heart. Let me go."

Mikaela's eyes narrowed for a moment, and Megatron's words came back to her.

We have to make it look like nothing peculiar happened, don't we?

Her father didn't know. He knew nothing of his rescuers, or the lengths Mikaela had to go in order to set him free. Mikaela didn't know what Megatron had done to him, didn't want to know, and probably never would know.

But he was alive, and ignorance was just a small price to pay.

The first guard glanced up at Mikaela, his lips pulling into a tight line. He said, "Does boss know about this?"

"Optimus?" Mikaela shook her head, and knelt down, meeting her father's eye. He was breathing heavily, but didn't seem the least bit intimidated. She said, "I'll escort him in."

The guard nodded, and did not say another word.

"Fisher had you in custody for how long?"

Mikaela watched as her father regarded Optimus with a look of respect, and a little bit of envy. He sat in a small, rotating chair in front of a table, Optimus and Mikaela towering over him with ease.

"About five weeks," he scratched the back of his head. "Not as long as it could have been. I got out, though."

Optimus nodded, but Mikaela saw a skeptical glimmer in her deep, blue optics. Looking down at her father, and then back up at Mikaela, he said, "And I believe, David, that your daughter has explained everything to you? Her circumstances, as well as mine?"

A small sigh, and then a small, "yes."

Optimus glanced at Mikaela.

"How did he take it?"

"Well," Mikaela replied with a shrug. "Though I think I could've explained the whole 'Cybertronian anomaly' thing better. He was pissed that he wouldn't be getting any grandchildren."

Optimus snorted, and Fisher looked up.

"Mr. Prime….sir," Mikaela's father began cautiously, shifting in his seat, craning him neck to look at the behemoth in front of him. "What do you want with my daughter?"

"She is as valuable to the Autobots as she is to you, Mr. Banes," Optimus crouched down, joints clicking. "I assure you that she is in the best care."

"Say's you," he snorted.

"What do you want to do with me, dad?" Mikaela spread her arms out wide. "Fix me? You tried that, and look what happened."

Her father opened his mouth, and then seemed to deflate like a balloon, sinking back into his chair. Quietly, ever so quietly, he said, "I just want things to go back to the way they were. You can understand that, right?"

Optimus glanced back at Mikaela, and stood up. "I should give you two some time alone."

And then, he was gone.

The awkward silence was so thick that Mikaela could have cut it with a knife. Her father sat in the chair, still, with his arms crossed and his head directed at the ground. Not once did he make a move to look up.

Mikaela broke the silence by saying, "so, Dad….how have you been?"

"How do you think?" Finally, he looked up, green eyes twinkling with too many emotions for Mikaela to count. "Find out my daughter has been turned into….into….a machine, and not be able to do anything about it."

Mikaela didn't reply.

"Sucks," her father concluded with a shrug. "The whole thing."

"Well, you certainly put on an effort to try and get me back to normal," Mikaela said acidly.

"It was an effort true to my heart," her father replied.

"And how did that work out for you, huh?" Mikaela exploded, stepping forward, each step causing her fathers chair to quiver. "Listen to me, dad, for the last time, there's nothing you can do to fix me."

"There has to be a way…."

"There's not," Mikaela knelt down on one knee, bracing her hands on either side of her fathers chair. Face just a foot from his, she said, "I'm sorry."

"Do you like being like…." Her father gestured at her metal body. "One of them?"

"It was better than the alternative."

"Which was?"

"Death," Mikaela gritted her dental plates together. "Not even Ratchet would have been able to fix me."

"He could have tried."

"You think he didn't?" Mikaela said incredulously. "You think that I wanted this?"

Her father shook his head, leaning back in his chair, a languid sigh escaping his lips. "No. I think that they wanted this. Enslave the human race, that's their goal, right?"

"Wrong campaign, Dad," Mikaela said, easing up a bit to give her father some space. She could detect his elevated heart rate, could see the sweat glinting on his brow due to the nerves. She felt a pang of hurt in her spark, the fact that her father, her own father, was somewhat afraid of her.

"Fisher said something different."

"Well, Fisher is a jackass," Mikaela said. "You're going to take his word over mine?"

That got him for a second. He scratched his arms, and then smoothed back his dark hair. "Don't forget, you haven't been entirely truthful with me, either."

"Did I lock you up in jail?" Mikaela challenge, and then, her optics softened. Door wings twitching, she said to her father, "Look, dad, I think we can both admit that….I'm not changing. And you can either accept that….or not."

"You're my daughter."

"I know."

"You know that this is hard for me."

"I understand. But there's nothing me, or Optimus, or Ratchet can do about it."

He didn't reply. Just shifted nervously in his seat as Mikaela knelt down, fingers reaching out to touch him.

He flinched back reflectively.

"I won't hurt you."

"I didn't think you would."

"The come here," Mikaela made a gesture with her fingers. "Optimus should be waiting outside."

"I don't want to see him right now."

He was trying to avoid touching her. Mikaela felt as if someone had plunged a knife right into her spark, the pain tearing away at her very insides.

"You're going to have to. Just step onto my palm, and hold onto my thumb. I won't drop you. I swear."

Reluctantly, her father stood from his chair and took a tentative step onto Mikaela open palm. Knees wobbling, banging together, he finally fell and gripped her thumb.

Mikaela lifted his up and held him in front of her, seeing his wide eyes as he took in her new face. She said, "not so bad, is it?"

"Not so bad."

He was lying. But Mikaela didn't care, as long as he was safe and with her.

She wondered what Megatron would think of her now.