"Oh, Roadrunner, dear! Isn't this just lovely! So, so extremely lovely!"
Roadrunner sat with her back against the wall, watching her father twist together various nuts and bolts, his hands flying over his work so fast that Roadrunner optics could barely keep up.
There had been an idea nagging at her father mind for centuries, now.
Centuries of studying and analyzing various species collected from all over the galaxy and studying how their processors worked. Some were organic, some were a strange, abnormal mixture between organic and inorganic.
Those were the ones that always scared Roadrunner. Even as a youngling, she had always dreaded going to her fathers lab, no matter what the cost.
Who cared that she barely ever saw him any more. Who cared that he lived in his lab, wallowing in the stench of decaying organic material, slicing up brains, freezing them and heating them. He lived for his work.
He did not live for Roadrunner.
"You're onto something?" She murmured.
"More than onto something," her father spun, and, hanging from his hand was the head of a slain Autobot, still sparking and twitching as if it were still alive. "You've heard of what the humans call a cerebral cortex, right, my dear?"
"The species disgust me."
"Then my work must disgust you, also," her father crouched down to where she was hunched over in a corner, head still dangling from his hand. But now, it was rocking back and forth and Roadrunner thought of warning her father but she had been robbed of the words.
"The human cerebral cortex is a strange thing, Runner," her father breathed. "Tap into it, and you can have them spilling all their secrets. The more we know about them, closer we are to making them like us!"
"Your studies will be the end of you, father," Roadrunner snarled. "Megatron will have your head before the day is done!"
Roadrunner instantly regretted her words.
"Head?" the Autobot head dangling in her father hand was speaking now, its worn, disgusting lip plates and single optic coming online. It began to cackle like a hyena.
"Head? Did someone say head!"
Roadrunner screamed. Her father didn't seem to care, he only cared about his work, and right now, his work was trying to figure out a way to make his daughter, his precious little Roadrunner squirm.
"I've given you everything you've ever wanted," her father growled. "And yet you reject my work?"
"Your work is nothing but vulgarity! How in the name of Primus are you going to find a way to transform the human brain into Cybertronian processors?"
"Not transform, Runner, transport," her father breathed. "You'll understand, in all due time."
Roadrunner ran. She shoved past her father, knocking over table and throwing herself out into the hallway, tripping over her own to pedes.
Mikaela knew that it was her mindmate projecting the images into her head, like some sort of dream.
Like some sort of sick nightmare.
Roadrunner could still hear the head cackling, singing, it seemed, at a pitch high enough to shatter glass.
"Mikaela!" Optimus was shouting, shaking her.
"Ringaround the rosey"
"A pocket full of posey"
"Mikaela! Mikaela, please, wake up!"
"Ashes, ashes."
Mikaela awoke just as the last lines faded from her mind, disappearing as quickly as they had come.
"We all fall down."
Mikaela was motionless, Optimus laying on the berth beside her, his arms wrapped around her waist, his head buried in her shoulder.
No one talked. Mikaela was too scared to close her optic in fear that Roadrunner would project more memories into her head.
"Mikaela?" Optimus whispered, his lip plates grazing her audio receptors.
"Yes?"
"Are you alright?"
"It's getting worse," she breathed. "And….I don't know how to stop it."
"And I fear Ratchet will be of no use in this certain department," Optimus cycled his vents and nuzzled Mikaela's neck. "This internal battle will be your own, Mikaela. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It isn't your…." Mikaela trailed off, biting her lip plates before finishing with, "your fault."
"Don't hesitate."
"I'm trying not to say it," Mikaela wriggled around, turning so she was facing the mech. Noses touching slightly, Mikaela whispered, "I'm trying not to say what's not true."
"I was the one who ordered Ratchet to commence the transplant," Optimus said ruefully. "If I would have known the effects….I…." he shook his head, lost. "I just don't know, Mikaela. I just don't know what else I could have done."
"You did what you thought was right."
"But did I do what I thought was best for you?"
Mikaela ran her fingers across his lip plates, feeling them quiver slightly. She just wished she could somehow get into his processors and see just what he was thinking of the moment.
Was he seeing Mikaela as Mikaela, or seeing her as Roadrunner, back from the dead, duped into thinking she was someone else?
And, above all else, had he brought her back to life just for the purpose of seeing, kissing, touching his dead mate? It had been her theory from the start, a skeptical one, one that she hadn't thought about when she had been dipping her fingers under the grooves of his armor, surrendering herself to him.
She just didn't know.
"Do you –"
"Yes," Optimus barely waited for her to get the words out, and as if reading her mind, he said, "yes. I do love you."
"And you love me….for me?"
"What exactly are you implying?"
Mikaela gulped, steeled herself, unsure of how to approach the matter. She said, "I can never replace her. You know that."
Optimus' face was blank.
"But I can try to be just as caring and…." Mikaela fumbled over the words, images from Roadrunners dismal past coming to her. "Loving. She loved you, Optimus."
"As I look back, I'm finding that harder and harder to believe," Optimus hand found the back of Mikaela neck. "We've both been through rejection and pain and the torment of watching your loved ones turn their back on the world."
Sam. Mikaela didn't need to ask to know who he was talking about.
"I understand. But you still haven't answered…."
"I love you, Mikaela. I love you."
And Mikaela knew that those words would stay with her for the rest of her long, long life.
"You're late, Mikaela," Ratchet shot her a dirty look, and, feet dangling off the edge of the medical berth, Trina gave a low whistle. Ratchet ignored her and said, "I could hear you two from in here."
"I could say the same thing."
The way Ratchet's lip plates twitched was enough to make Mikaela laugh out loud, her voice echoing around the walls.
"Ohhhh," Trina said. "You just got owned, Doc Bot."
"So, what do you need me for?" Mikaela hoisted herself up beside Trina, scooting to the side to give the human some room. Trina was adjusting the straps of her tank top, messing with her hair and trying to act so oblivious.
"What's up?" Mikaela said slowly, nudging Trina with her finger. Trina gave a small giggle and batted Mikaela's hand away playfully. "What is it?"
"Ironhide and I have been thinking," Ratchet began, turning to face Mikaela. "You've shown quite a deal of expertise when it comes to dealing with Decepticons, both in your human years, and now."
"I don't like where this is going," Mikaela said, glancing down at Trina.
"Just wait," Trina held up a finger.
"You're familiar in the art of weaponry, correct?"
"You mean….whoa, you're going to give me a weapon?" Mikaela exclaimed. "Like, Ironhide's cannons?"
"I suggested we start you off with something a little more low key," Trina called up. "Something that you won't accidently shoot yourself in the foot with."
"Hey, I've had more experience with guns than you, Garrison," Mikaela said. "Like the time I um….well….that wasn't really a gun, it was a power saw…"
"Spare me the stories, Kayla'," Trina said. "Hide' and Doc Bot have been thinking this through, long and hard. You're ready."
"Are you serious?"
Ratchet was already holding up a welder, smiling like some demented doctor out of a science fiction movie.
"Serious," he said.
It took Mikaela an hour and twenty minutes, after much cursing, fire, and yelling to figure out the irony.
Her life, indeed, was a science fiction movie.