Small World
"Through the Quiet"
by Nan00k

The Winchesters had a family of four during those long nights on the road. Too bad the three humans never noticed that fourth member. From 1973 to 2010, they were not alone. Superformers. AU. Part of the Small World series.

Due to the fact I finished this installment before I finished the real next installment, I decided to post it anyway, because the next one will take me a long time. Sorry for the change-up, if you were expecting more Crowley.

For those reading this for the SuperWhoLock, I do apologize for the sudden inclusion of an unexpected fandom. But bear with me. I promise, these aliens are pretty good guys. It allll works out, promise.

For those who were waiting for the Superformers… you all saw THIS coming. ;)

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Disclaimers: Supernatural © Kripke/CW. Transformers © Hasbro/Dreamworks. Doctor Who © BBC.
Warnings: foul language, descriptive violence, science(-fiction), massive cross-over, alternative-universe for multiple fandoms, canon character deaths.

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They were never supposed to come to Earth.

The name of the planet was utterly unimportant up until the point he crashed through its mesosphere with leaking energon boiling up behind him in the upper atmosphere. His systems were failing and pain laced through every circuit—but he had just enough time and coherency to hack into the planet's telecommunications systems to learn the language of the native species. He could only compile the vast quantities of grainy images and sounds briefly when he passed their satellites.

Then, he crashed into a field of tall grass and mud and went offline for nearly twenty planetary cycles.

When he came back online, literally hundreds of errors were on his HUD feed. Telecommunications were down, hydraulics in both legs and right arm were not responding, protoform shields were torn to Pit and back… he had quite literally nearly fallen apart.

Laying there in the muck of an alien (and organic at that) world, he did manage to break down what had happened to him. And his team.

They had only been reconnaissance, tracking down rumors of the All Spark's location via Decepticon transmissions Jazz's squad had decoded nearly a vorn ago. Shockwave's exploratory team had found them just outside of the edge of the planet's solar system. There was no sign of survivors on either side—Smokescreen's leadership had fallen apart in mere astro-klicks, with the Decepticon scouts slamming into their unit without any warning.

The survivor of the Autobot team managed to extract himself from the brief, violent skirmish, but he had not expected to survive the trip to the nearest planet with intelligent life forms. Getting to Earth had been a miracle. Then again, Primus seemed to have been slacking on the miracles as of late. Perhaps it had just been luck.

Luck did not last for very long, no matter where one was in the universe. Earth's native species—humans, in the dominant Earth language of English—were not space-faring. They had only achieved sentience through evolutionary tracts in the last twenty-thousand rotations around their star. They were infants compared to the long-lived, ancient Cybertronians. Even he was older than their species' agricultural history.

He had broken protocol coming to that planet. The humans were a protected species under Autobot law. Interfering, or interacting with them, was a punishable offense.

He had no choice, however. He tried to reestablish contact with Autobot command, but there were no comm. buoys anywhere in this sector. He was afraid of the Decepticons having survived the skirmish after all and hunting him down. Worse, his outgoing messages could attract Shockwave to Earth.

Earth... would not survive Shockwave. Not yet. Not for a very long time.

He returned to the data he had taken from their networking satellites. All of it was primitive. They called it television. It was entertainment and news sharing. Judging from the local airwaves he was receiving, he landed in the dominant nation called United States of America. It was a year they called 1972, though that made little sense, because they had been around much longer than two thousand solar cycles. Their nations were much like Cybertron's city-states, though these organics seemed far more divided by menial differences and had hundreds more of those nations than Cybertron ever did. The dominant language was easily enough to compile through the airwaves. Soon enough, he had a solid lexicon. He shut the communications connection down; it drained his reserves too quickly.

Their current situation globally seemed dire. A conflicting nation called the Soviet Union posed nuclear threats to the United States. That was a troubling thought. Wars in nations far to the east also created turmoil within the United States. It was a bad time to appear as an alien, he realized. His luck continued to spiral downwards when he realized that he could not stand out in his protoform. He was severely injured and the environment of Earth was not up to handling extraterrestrial encounters.

He forced his abused systems to activate the transcan module when he finally found a road out there in the countryside. He hit a passing vehicle fitting his size—a 1967 Chevrolet Impala he learned in hindsight—and transformed.

It nearly killed him. Quite literally. He slammed onto the side of the road, systems heaving and sparking. The pain nearly sent him offline again. He wished he had; the pain was too much to bear. The transformation sequence almost stopped in mid-motion. It was only with great precision that he managed to force the action through and he slammed down onto part of the black road, his engines and systems steaming up the cold air.

Critical systems failure warnings blocked his vision again. He was dying faster than his self-repair could fix the problems.

He needed energon. He needed… to survive. He couldn't give up.

In agony, he propelled himself forward. He couldn't go further than a few feet—such an odd measurement in human tongue—and found himself stranded in his own thoughts and burning wires.

For a long, long night, he wanted to just fade away. It hurt so much.

At the dawn of another day, a human stopped behind him. They were tinier up close, with beady eyes and soft flesh that looked like it would melt in the sun. The creature left and then came back with more. They hooked the back of the stranded Impala to another vehicle with a crane.

He decided to take it as another miracle when they dragged him back to civilization.

0000

Lawrence, Kansas
1973

His race had evolved to be adaptable, far more so than the humans ever did with their flimsy armor called clothing. He could survive extreme heat and the extreme cold of space, but his main defense had always been transformation. He was lucky that the species here had evolved to the point where they had machinery. If he had landed just decades—batches of ten planetary cycles, he calculated—ago, he would have nothing to pose as to hide.

Human vehicles, called cars vernacularly, were barely adequate sizes. The oversized hood of the vehicle he had chosen would be able to cope with the internal mechanisms, but he was very glad he had a model that could handle the claustrophobic conditions. Someone like the Prime would never be able to hide amongst the humans.

The cramped conditions worked when he was left alone, but the humans who had dragged him on unresisting wheels—which he had to simulate the rubber quality; the material was just as foreign as anything else the humans had developed from natural resources here—had not let him sit on their odd lot full of other human cars in peace. They talked amongst themselves about what to do with the "free merchandise" they had found on the road.

They were merchants of cars, he learned. They intended to sell him to someone who needed a car. While the idea of being sold like a hunk of scrap was not his idea of a good time, the injured Impala gradually understood that humans took care of their cars generally. He needed the fuel more than he needed his pride, as much as it burned.

The engineers of the merchants—or rather, mechanics he learned later—pried his hood open only after he reluctantly allowed them access. He had to let them investigate what they thought they were selling. He had to hide long enough to get out of his situation alive. They never saw anything more than what he wanted them to, at any rate.

He was in a place called Kansas. He later learned it was specifically Lawrence, Kansas. It was an obscure location, but there always seemed to be humans everywhere…humans who crowded the merchant lot and made purchases out of the other vehicles there. He was not exempt from those activities.

The humans ran their hands all over his hood all day long. He cringed away at the dull, oily touch. Organics were gross. He did not dare move away, however. Even the dimmest human would notice a self-propelled car, he had learned early on. He could only endure the poking and prodding.

Until…he wasn't sure. He still could not risk open communications. He doubted he'd be able to hail any Autobots nearby, even if the Decepticons were actually gone. The human fuel—gasoline—was foul and barely energized his form. He tried to conserve as much as he could by remaining in stasis for weeks on end.

He was bought once, when he had been online, but the new owner returned him within eight hours due to the fuel consumption. They were displeased with having to spend the currency on obtaining fuel to run his systems. They just called him a "gas-guzzler" and the merchants tried to gloss over those words when selling him.

He remained on the lot after that for months. It was a boring existence, but he had hope that maybe, he could become stronger. They did not fuel him regularly, however, just sitting there. He spent most of his days in voluntary stasis, feeling more and more trapped every time he woke.

Then, one day, a year after his rescue by human hands, everything changed. One human did not differ greatly from the next, but the three he encountered that day stood out in his processors, all for very different reasons.

It was early in the light cycle—day—when a dark haired human spoke with one of the merchants about purchasing a bulky "van" that was parked next to the Impala. The view of the exchange was blocked from his sensors when another human, hunched and surly, leaned against his front bumper. It was innocuous, but something about the way the new human peered at the dark haired one made the Impala wanted to draw in on himself.

The surly one had come up to the lot being tailed by a tall man in a blue suit, who said nothing at first and only watched both men when the surly one spoke out to the first man. The surly one told the dark haired man to not buy the van. Instead… he turned their attention to the Impala, who was immediately intrigued.

"You know something about cars?" the dark haired man asked. The emotions in his expression suggested amusement.

"Yeah," the surly one said, in a manner that seemed even odder, "my dad taught me everything I know. And this? This is a great car."

They fumbled with his hood. He did not resist and peered up at them as they stared, unknowingly, down at him. It would not harm his cover; after all, the forged human components readily covered his real power sources underneath. The mechanics never bothered to look that deep.

"327 four barrel, 275 horses…" the surly human said, smiling appreciatively at the interior, at what he presumed were actual man-made components. "A little TLC and this thing is cherry." He did not know what the first part of that statement meant, but it sounded almost prideful. The Impala preened a little at the attention, despite his exhaustion.

"You know, man, you're right…" the dark haired man said, sounding reluctant.

The surly human nodded over at the van. "What are you buying that thing for?"

The dark haired human became almost apologetic. "Kind of promised someone I would…"

"Over a '67 Chevy?" the surly one asked. "Come on, this is a car of a lifetime."

I am a highly trained scout under the Iaconian Special Forces led by Tactical Officer Prowl himself, thank you very much, the Impala thought to himself, his attention drifting. His reserves were running low again. He should have gone into recharge then.

He kept watching the one in the blue suit, hovering at the edge of the scene. That human did not seem like the others. A quick scan of his body showed strange readings. Humans only had one cardiovascular muscle, known as a heart. This one had…two. He had not expected non-humans to be exposed on Earth. They were not.

This was an unexpected guest of Earth then, the Impala realized, quite like himself. Interesting.

"Trust me," the surly one said. "This baby's going to be badass when it's forty."

The Impala wanted to laugh at such a small estimate. Even with his current power failure and crippled systems, he would last much longer than forty planetary cycles around the sun.

Before the dark haired human could protest or agree, the blue-suited alien moved closer with odd familiarity.

"I think your friend is right," he said, grinning brightly. He clapped both the dark haired human and the surly human around their shoulders and grinned at the car, his eyes very strange. "It's a very good car!"

"Oh?" the dark haired man asked, pulling back.

The surly human moved back even further, his expression suddenly volatile with distrust. "Who're you?"

"Oh, no one important, just passing through," the blue-suited alien said, tucking his hands into the cloth that covered his body (pockets, he later learned). He seemed entirely unfazed by the other man's mistrust. "But yes, that…is one good car."

The dark haired man was more concerned about the car. "But my girlfriend…" he began. Girlfriend; a domestic partner, similar to wife. Implied sexual relationship, used mostly for procreation. The Impala winced. Human sparklings seemed loud and messy enough at a distance. He did not relish the idea of one being inside of him.

"This is an investment, right?" the blue-suited alien said, continuing to radiate a sense of optimism that seemed odd for a stranger to show over another's purchase. Even the other humans seemed baffled at his conduct. "Well, consider the future. A van'll help with kids, but what's going to give you the best sort of memories, eh?"

The dark haired human seemed curious as to why the new human-like alien would say what he had; the surly one was merely suspicious. The tension between him and the blue-suited alien was…interesting. The Impala wondered why it existed.

Ultimately, it came down to the dark haired human.

"…I'll take the Impala," he said, eyes shining with reflected light, as he gazed back at the Impala.

Take. Own. As if the car were merely a car. They did not know the truth, however.

"I'm John Winchester, by the way," the dark haired man said, smiling that odd smile the humans all had, showing off the bone protruding in their mouths, called teeth. "Thanks."

"…Dean Van Halen," the surly one said, hesitating in return. The Impala saw an odd emotion in his eyes. "Thank you."

For whatever the reason, the blue suited man grinned and looked up at the sky, amused. He turned and patted the Impala's hood faintly, with too much familiarity, before walking off. They never heard his designation. It didn't matter, really.

The merchant returned and was flustered over the switching the sales forms. The surly human stood around while the merchant left to retrieve the proper forms and continued to stare at John Winchester with an unreadable expression. Humans were far too versatile with their eyes to be entirely sure of their intentions.

"Listen," Dean Van Halen said, as the keys were switched over. "Watch out for yourself, okay?"

"Yeah," John Winchester told him, surprised. "Sure."

The other man left, his eyes hardened and the Impala briefly wondered who exactly he was. There was little time or energy to devote to pondering it for long. The sale went on and he was suddenly property. He sat back within his own frame to let the human drive him "home," which turned out to be a box-shaped building minutes away. His mate disapproved of the Impala, which was amusing to watch from a distance.

The dark haired human ended up being The Human for several solar rotations. He never seemed to mind the fuel consumption problems.

Somehow, the Human wound up being John Winchester by the time he and his mate Mary settled in their new home together as a familial unit.

Somehow, the human became John.

0000

November 2, 1983

The night of the fire changed everything. Human domiciles were cramped and ultimately death traps. He couldn't complain, since his home ended up being out the front of the house, but John took very good care of him. John was a good human—a good-sparked creature that cared deeply for his building family. It was alarming how fast humans reproduced and how fast those sparklings grew. The night John and Mary brought their first son Dean home was a frightening experience for everyone. The Impala rode on strong, however, figuring out from just how gentle the humans were with their offspring that human sparklings, called infants, were very fragile.

He watched Dean grow at a rapid pace, where he could stand on his own feet and run. He ran all over their front yard, so bold and energetic for such a small thing. The Impala watched and was pleased. He didn't know why. He certainly didn't know why he suddenly shared the pride and happiness Mary and John had when they learned they were to have another child. This was also a boy—whom they named Sam, after Mary's lost father.

For several weeks, it was just them. Just the Winchesters. Happy, safe. Growing.

That made the fire so much worse.

Dean ran outside that November night with his brother tucked in his arms. The Impala sat there in shock and horror as the fire erupted across the house, consuming the aged wood. For a long minute, he could not see John or Mary. The boys were alone, even when neighbors called the police and the fire trucks roared onto the scene. It had only occurred to the Impala then that he should have been the one to call first.

It was a relief to see John barrel out of the house, but the relief did not last. He collected his sons and held them in a fierce embrace.

He had left the house alone.

The Impala watched in silence as the Winchester home burned. The fires were eventually quenched, but they had taken all that was once valuable from them.

"It's okay," John whispered, clutching Dean and Sam close. He rocked them gently on the hood of the Impala. "It's okay. Daddy's got you."

The Impala only learned of what had exactly happened to the Winchester family days later. Mary was dead. Murdered. The local authorities did not want to hear anything about John's story, of finding his wife pinned to the ceiling and then bursting into flames. It made no sense to anyone, but John knew what he had seen.

Weeks later, after leaving the boys with a family friend, John drove the Impala to darker places, bars where he had been told by wary lurkers to seek out to find answers to the questions that gave him nightmares. There, they learned the truth. There, John Winchester found his destiny.

Monsters were real. A monster had killed his wife. A demon, by the sound of it, men told him gravely. Those men were hunters. They sought to destroy monsters that walked the Earth, like in legends the humans told themselves from ages past.

John Winchester threw himself and his sons into one mission and one mission alone: find the beast that had taken his wife, their mother, and kill it.

Hunters were not often born into their roles. They were baptized by fire, older hunters told him. The Impala believed it.

The fire had touched them all and it still lingered. It sank into John's soul and into the crevices of the Impala's metal hull.

Monsters. A human concept, a word that did not translate into Cybertronian. It was not a species, just a word for creatures that were frightening and inhuman.

Briefly, he realized he was a monster as well by that definition.

That did not stop John Winchester from holding his boys tightly in his arms inside the Impala. That night, the Winchesters entered a pact of vengeance inside the cradling form of another sort of monster, one who also swore to never leave after that night.

Whatever came next, he didn't have much choice but to follow. He would have followed anyway, he realized years later: the Impala was part of their family. He was part of their fate.

From then on, they hunted.

0000

Earth had changed overnight concerning his perceptions of it, but what took longer to accept as reality were the life changes of the humans in his care.

Children fighting monsters. Who would have even suggested it? Supported it? John Winchester did not have much of a choice but to bring his infant son and Dean along with him in the early years. Dean was too young for school, and even then, they put off the early educational years until Sam could handle daycare. John did not want to leave them anywhere alone, really. The Impala could not blame him one bit.

There were some helping hands. Distant family relatives sometimes took the boys in to put them through a few months of school. Dean did not like school; he had taken to the mission of hunting very seriously early on. He was a very intelligent boy. He knew what his father was doing was important work.

Sam grew slower than his brother had, or so it seemed. He asked more questions once he obtained the proper language protocols—or however it was that human younglings learned speech—and seemed a step away from the world of hunting that his brother and father were dedicated to. John and Dean threw themselves into the hunt while allowing Sam the privilege of lingering on the edge.

That wasn't to say it did not reach Sam, and subsequently Dean, even while their father was the one who went after monsters he caught wind of. John taught his sons how to load shotguns, pistols and how to clean them. He took pens out of Sam's hand to give him a knife instead. Sam was a quick learner, but less patient. Dean practiced throwing knives for hours, his expression more fitting a warrior than a seven year old.

Sometimes, it hit closer to home. The Impala was horrified when one day in 1990, they came back to a motel to find Sam near-death and Dean panicked. A shtriga had attacked Sam while Dean had been there alone. Dean had been scolded fiercely for letting his brother come to harm, though it seemed unfair. Dean was just a child, too.

But children baptized by fire did not have it easy. That, they all had to learn.

When they met fellow-hunter Bobby Singer, John suddenly had a helping hand in raising the boys. He left them with "Uncle Bobby" whenever a hunt required him to leave for long periods of time. The Impala did not like Bobby watching the children alone at first, but grew to trust him as John did. The boys adored the older hunter, who seemed to adore them just as much. Sometimes, it did pay to keep friends close. Any semblance of family was a welcome change for the children.

They came to know one particular place as home foremost in their youth: the car their father drove, the expansive back of the Impala. They did not know how carefully it drove them from town to town. They did not know how much care their home returned to them as the years drifted by.

Late at night, while John was pouring over maps and two bundles in the backseat slept on with shotguns under their pillows, the car hummed discreetly beneath them in quiet watch.

0000

Nebraska, 1989

It did not help when John hunted alone. The boys—they were too young. Often times, they were forced to stay with extended friends in various communities to catch up schooling, which was required by law. John left them reluctantly, no matter how sullen Sam would get at the absence of his father. The boy did not fully understand sometimes.

John traveled wide and the Impala proudly went with him. They hunted all sorts of creatures in their search for the Demon or any knowledge concerning it. They were only getting bits and pieces of the whole story. They rarely encountered demons, but they proved to be dead ends more often than not. John became well versed in how to kill them, regardless.

One night, after checking in with a new friend Bobby Singer, John caught wind of a shapeshifter targeting residents in a small town in northwest Nebraska. It was not a faulty lead; they found the 'shifter's lair easy enough. Years of hunts had given them both a strong lexicon on what lurked outside of normal human life. John picked up a trail and drove the Impala to one of the deserted service roads that served as the beast's path back to its nest.

Neither he nor the Impala suspected the shapeshifter to have been tracking them first. It attacked viciously, but John got one good shot with the shotgun. The creature howled and seemed to dive off into the bushes. The Impala almost made the hasty decision to activate its short-range radar, fuel be damned, to locate the monster.

It was too late then. John didn't see the shapeshifter reappear behind him while trying to reload. The creature was far too fast and snapped the shotgun right out of the hunter's hands. Even without bullets, the creature turned it into a deadly weapon. It swung the firearm directly at John's head and the human went flying with a yell.

He did not get back up, even when the shapeshifter began to stalk forward. The human remained motionless on the ground, knocked unconscious.

The Impala roared and surged forward. The shapeshifter turned and its inhuman eyes shone in the car's bright lights.

It was then that the Impala stood. For the first time in nearly two decades, he stood upon his own pedes, transforming swiftly. He rose above the stunned monster, which looked lost under his shadow. His systems protested fiercely, but there was no way the Autobot would remain silent. Not now.

"What are you?" the shapeshifter asked in horror, stumbling backwards on unsteady feet, in flesh that it had stolen from some other innocent.

It was that sort of fearful reaction that made him feel like a Decepticon, like Megatron himself.

It felt surprisingly pleasurable after all those decades.

"Iaconian," the Impala answered, reaching forward with a solid metal hand.

Monsters were monsters. They were not the sentient beings that the Autobots had sworn to protect. There was no guilt in his spark to tear the creature apart. It was easy, too.

If it was a violation of Autobot conduct, the Impala did not care. It had been worth it.

He did not dare remain bi-pedal for long. He transformed back into the Impala's more permanent shape and fought the pain to do so. It had been too long and he was still heavily damaged. The injuries sustained years ago did not atrophy like human injuries did, but any sane medic would have a processor crash over the untouched repairs he had left linger for so long. Now…

He could not attempt another transformation like that again, but even as he struggled to maintain his internal systems, he knew it was worth it. John was safe. The boys still had their father. The hunting would continue.

When John came to, he said nothing to anyone about the slain shapeshifter—because he did not presume there was anyone there to speak to. He kept a calm expression and merely went back to the Impala, unknowingly trusting yet another non-human to get him back to his sons.

The Impala purred as they drove, ignoring the lingering sense of pain.

This was where he belonged.

0000

August, 2001

Sam left when he was eighteen. The Impala had seen it coming. They all had, really, but the other two men had ignored it, as if it would make the problem go away.

Part of the Impala was glad Sam left for Stanford. The tiny buddle that had grown into a tall, smiling man deserved to follow his dreams. He never liked the hunt. He wanted a regular life. Education promised that, so he left for college.

In doing so, Sam left his family behind, however. He left without warning them, though a warning seemed unnecessary. The air inside the Impala had grown colder and then full of sparks over the last year as the younger Winchester finished high school, his eyes full of want of change. His father did not approve. There were horrible fights.

And then, Sam left. Early in the morning, he left the motel they had been staying at just outside of the town where the youngest Winchester went to high school. He escaped by bus, skipping his own ceremonial graduation, having already been accepted by the school of his choice hundreds of miles away.

He escaped the life of the hunter, at long last. It seemed justifiable.

Even when Dean came out in a flurry of anger and drove the Impala off to uninhabited areas to curse and throw things at the air.

Even when John Winchester drank and broke glasses in the motel, silent and full of self-hatred.

The Impala pitied them in silence, as he always had.

When he left, Sam had trailed his hand over the hood of the Impala one last time. The Impala savored the memory and branded it into his spark, even while telling himself Sam would come back eventually.

It took four years, but he did.

0000

October, 2005

Dean had driven the Impala alone for the last two years. It had been surreal when the Winchesters split up for longer and longer time periods. John had become obsessed with the leads on the Demon. Dean seemed content hunting anything that he encountered on the road, his silent companion within the Impala watching and wishing the hunter did not feel so alone.

It was the disappearance of John that led Dean to break the self-imposed exile from his younger brother. Naturally, Dean did not share his plans to the car he drove, but the Impala knew the reunion was overdue when they crossed state lines into California. Via the Internet, the Impala checked up on Sam occasionally through social media sources. Dean found his brother through conventional means on his own, staking out the younger Winchester's apartment easily.

The Impala almost wanted to scold the youngest Winchester for being so lax about his security when Dean went up to collect his brother; surely, he hadn't lost his skills in four years. John would be very disappointed in the boy, otherwise. The solider in their car would also be rather disappointed.

Sam had not grown lax; he merely become dependent on denial. He still wanted nothing to do with the hunting tradition. He was almost finished with college. He was going to become a lawyer. A commendable trade, had it not interfered with other more pressing concerns.

It did not take much convincing to get Sam to help Dean find their father. The radio silence from the elder Winchester was rather alarming now. The Impala hoped Sam was right to believe it was merely John being, well, John.

Their attempt to find John led to several unfortunate events…including a ghost possessing his frame. The Impala had fought the intrusion with violent internal attacks, but the ghost was wise enough to escape the electrocuting self-defenses. To be so quickly possessed—the Impala had never expected to be used like that before. It was a liability, one that he was helpless to prevent, he learned.

Luckily, he was only used temporarily, though it had nearly killed Sam who had been inside him and the target of the vengeful spirit who drove the Impala to her one-time home. The Winchesters defeated the spirit with unconventional means—which included driving the Impala into the house.

He had not appreciated that very much, but he grudgingly accepted it as part of his commitment to the hunt. They were all very lucky his exoskeleton would not be damaged by a mere human house.

The only good to come of the distracting hunt had been Dean's discovery of coordinates in his father's journal. Sam resisted the hunt for their father yet again, and much to Dean's displeasure, was driven home to his apartment.

The Impala had expected Dean to wait for a few minutes until he saw Sam get in safely and then try to figure out how they'd go on without him to find his father.

They heard screams from the apartment minutes later. They saw the flare of fire inside. Dean took off running at the sound of his brother screaming.

Sinking low upon himself, the Impala watched in horror as the same fate that took Mary from them happened again… to Sam's own partner, Jessica.

He had to watch Sam scream in his brother's arms, this time as a grown man, not an infant. It wasn't fair. It seemed impossibly unfair.

The Demon was still there, hunting them as they hunted it.

It did not take much convincing to get Sam to follow them after that, to find John, in order to find the Demon.

"We have work to do," Sam said, slamming the trunk closed. Both Winchesters were determined for different reasons, but they were in it together, once more.

When Dean turned the ignition and the Impala roared to life, the roar was just a little louder than usual.

Indeed, they did.

0000

November-December, 2006

The truck had nearly killed him.

In fact, in a way, it had.

The Yellow Eyed Demon had used John Winchester against his sons. It had seemed to come to its head, however, and the main concern was to get the injured humans to the nearest hospital. Only Sam was coherent enough to drive. The Impala roared as they tore away from the warehouse, Sam pressing the car to its limits.

Drip by drip, the Winchesters made their mark on him in an uncomfortably familiar manner that hadn't happened in years. Their blood sank into his interior compartment. The car shuddered at the realization their life essence was being lost. They had to get to medical attention, immediately.

And then, the eight-wheeler slammed broadside into them. A demon at the wheel, the crushing blow from the massive grill, the sound of the humans being thrown around like sacks of meat—

The Impala lost visuals and then was sent offline. He did not know how long he was out of commission. The next time he could register the outside world, it was days later. His body—the frame of the Impala—was in ruins.

Effectively, he was dead. Only his spark and memory core remained undamaged from the sneak attack. Agony became his awareness, his waking filled with crippling pain…

He willingly went into stasis. He could not bear consciousness, even though he knew in the back of his processors that he had to find the Winchesters. He had to be there for them.

Two weeks later, he onlined with a jolt. His frame did not move with his spark or fears; he was no longer connected to the internal systems that made up his transformed body. His body was no longer there; the only thing registering was dulled pain. He could not hear or see anything. His sensors had been destroyed or temporarily offlined. He could not tell.

Eventually, he regained audio. His receptors had been intricately placed within the dashboard of the car and along the interior of the hood. He lost more than half of that; only the dashboard audio remained intact, albeit severely damaged. He pushed any self-repair systems to manage it, but he realized that that his self-repair was down as well. He could only trust the exodermal metal to eventually stabilize itself.

In the meantime, he did not hear the familiar voices of the Winchesters for several days. There was noise and the sound of mechanical work. Someone was working on his frame, it seemed. They were silent. Eventually, he devised it was Dean.

Days later, when the human spoke with his brother, the Impala learned the truth.

John Winchester was dead.

He had sold his soul to save his oldest son. The Demon had won again. This time, it had devastating consequences.

For a long time, trapped inside his processors for the most part, the Impala wondered what they could possibly do next. Dean and Sam both wanted revenge. In time… so did he. Hot, black emotions ran through his spark.

It did not matter if it took them months or years. The Yellow Eyed Demon would pay for this. For everything he had taken from the boys and their parents.

But on the cold nights alone, when Dean was not working on his undercarriage, the Impala was left to look at himself with a critical, dampening realization when he finally saw how crippled he actually was now.

He could not transform.

He could not drive on his own.

He could barely connect to any communications systems.

He was…just a car. A car with a spark, tucked away so pathetically, one stray accident could have ended his existence entirely.

His life now rested in the gentle, worn hands that fixed his exterior and unknowingly brushed over his spark chamber and memory core. Once the human finished the job, perhaps the remaining exodermal metal would begin a slow healing process to reconnect what remained on the transformer to the newer pieces of the man-made metal. The transformation cog was gone, however.

He was just a car now.

In time, he regained visual systems. He saw the gaunt look on Dean's face. He saw the guilt on Sam's. He could do nothing more than watch and wait.

They would move on. They would continue the mission their father left them. The Impala would be there for them even if he could have chosen otherwise.

This was his fate now just as it was theirs, he decided then.

Dean attacked the car with a tire iron one night and then collapsed in distress. The Impala, even if he could have felt the blows, would have taken them gladly.

The hard blows changed to gentle hands ran over the steering wheel. He could not feel it anymore, but he knew the hands were gentle.

Dean fell asleep in the Impala that night he finished repairs. The car stayed alert at all hours, watching over him. It was the only thing he could do; it was his pleasure to offer it.

0000

June, 2007

When the Yellow Eyed Demon died, struck down by the Winchesters at long last, it felt like a weight had been lifted from them. John was at peace. He deserved peace. He truly did.

But in the place of that weight came down another. Dean Winchester now had a price on his head; he had sold his soul to save Sam. The Impala watched with great dread as the Winchester brothers—the last of their kind, truly—wrestled with unspoken emotion.

Dean had one year to live before he would be dragged down to Hell.

"We have work to do," Dean said, face guarded. Sam nodded and they shut the trunk of the Impala resolutely.

One year.

They could do this. They had done more impossible things before. He felt a slow crawl over his systems as his interior systems rebuilt themselves. The sense of his strength returning gave him optimism.

The Impala prayed, regardless.

0000

June, 2008

The day that Dean Winchester died and was sent to Hell was the day the Impala refused to work.

It sat out on the driveway where Sam had her towed, and during several fierce storms that followed that day, Sam could have sworn he heard a screeching sound coming from the car, as if it were grieving, too.

When it finally did decide to let the engine turn over, Sam could have sworn the insides were ten sizes too big for a single man driving.

0000

October, 2008

The angel had fixed and ruined everything. Everything.

Death was not forever. That was a fact Earth kept proving over and over for him. Dean Winchester came back into his life and into Sam's without any warning. It had been four months of Sam scouring the land for a way to resurrect his brother. The car he drove had done what he could to keep the last Winchester brother safe, even if there was a demon helping Sam now. The Impala didn't trust her. Not one bit. He watched her warily, but his suspicions were put on hold when their world was once again in upheaval.

For Dean to come back, it seemed a miracle. And too good to be true. While Sam celebrated the unexpected twist of events, the Impala's joy died harshly when they realized that the resurrection…had strings attached.

He had watched in helpless fear as the creature descended upon Bobby and Dean's location inside the barn. For the briefest moment, he had wanted to charge forward and strike the beast away.

But he didn't.

For the first time in a long, long time, the fear that coursed through his frame wasn't for someone else. It was for himself. This wasn't a vampire, or a ghoul, or a ghost. This thing—

This thing had greater power than anything the Autobot had ever felt before. Strong, visceral power. Stronger than any Prime, Matrix or no.

It only took this Castiel, servant of a human god, a minute to discover the Impala, his cold eyes piercing through the pathetic layers of human armor.

Angels. Heavenly creatures, that were not all that heavenly. Terrible things. Nothing like them existed on Cybertron, or so he had thought. Their story, of the Christian god and his ilk existing, made no sense.

Why was Earth the only place in the cosmos to hold such monsters? He didn't understand it. It was pointless to try to understand, even when the creatures' story began to matter here, on Earth.

Particularly concerning the two Winchester boys.

There was talk of prophecies and destiny. About an apocalypse. Somehow, two boys from Kansas were destined to start the end of times on Earth. It made no sense.

The angel who had saved Dean, who had nearly killed poor Pamela, and figured out what actually lay underneath the Impala's hood, lingered in their lives. The Impala could do nothing but watch with wariness. He didn't trust them. They weren't human or mech; they were monsters. John had taught him, as he had taught his sons, to never trust monsters.

Castiel appeared whenever he wasn't welcome, but generally it was when one of the brothers were around. That morning, he showed up when the humans were asleep inside a motel room. The Impala had to face the angel down, alone. This time, the angel didn't ignore him with only a passing glance.

This time, he spoke to the car.

"You are not supposed to be here," the angel announced.

The car watched the creature move closer. Castiel could see him, or at least, see his spark.

What are you? the car asked within his own processors, knowing there was no point in pretending. If the creature could sense his spark, he probably could hear him.

"I am an angel of the Lord," Castiel replied, without even flinching. The car did, his tires crunching the rocks beneath them. "And you are not supposed to be here, Cybertronian."

Panic flooded his systems. How do you know that word? How do you know me?

"Your people were always doomed to destroy each other," the angel said, eyes narrowed. He sounded confused. "It's too soon for your kind to have found Earth."

Too soon? It wasn't their fault they found Earth. It wasn't their fault the Decepticons destroyed his entire unit, leaving him trapped there. But that was irrelevant. What was important now was what the angel and his brethren wanted. They weren't human and could not be trusted because of it.

Why are you here? the Impala asked, resisting a fight-or-flight urge. What do you want with the Winchesters?

Castiel tilted his head, like a bird. "They are to play their own roles in the destruction of their species," he said. "The End is coming."

Images of smoldering Praxus, burning Iacon, and the Senate murdered flooded his processors.

You're lying! the only remaining Autobot cried.

Earth wasn't going to turn into Cybertron. It wasn't going to fall to death and destruction. It was too young. Too young.

"I do not lie," Castiel said, remorseless.

Helpless, the Impala shrank in on himself. Earth…is just beginning. They're just beginning. The humans…

They were so young.

"All worlds have their end," Castiel said, eyes oddly soft now. "Yours did."

Vector Sigma crumbled. The Well of Sparks closed forever. Their race, doomed to extinction. He barely remembered what the Prime had looked like. Prime was probably dead by now, and with him, the Matrix.

I…

Castiel moved closer and was soon right in front of the Impala. "Your own existence hangs on by a string," he said, eyes drifting straight toward the spark that lay in secret beneath the chassis of the vehicle. "You exist in pain."

That was true. Only by separating himself from the bulk of the car's components had saved his core and spark. Being rebuilt had only been part of the problem. He couldn't transform any more and he couldn't move except when at the mercy of human hands. It had been getting better, but at a snail's pace.

But I'm still here, the Impala whispered. I…want to be here.

His home may have been destroyed, but here, among the Winchesters, he had a purpose still. This was his home now. For nearly thirty years, he was home.

"Trapped like this?" Castiel asked, eyes intense.

It would have been a mercy to finally return to the Well of Sparks. This wasn't his natural form. He probably would never be able to die a good death trapped inside the Impala's shell.

But being there was a blessing, too.

…I need to be here, he said. The boys need me.

The angel moved and rested a single hand on his hood.

"They don't know you're there," he said bluntly. The hand burned with unspoken threat of power.

Despite his spark flaring in fear, the Impala remained still.

That doesn't matter, he said.

Castiel frown deepened and didn't move. The car stared back and did his best to challenge the angel. He had no power or strength to defend himself, but he would not cave on this.

He was there to stay.

Out from the motel room, Dean and Sam came marching out. Castiel looked up and the car wilted beneath his touch.

Dean glared and motioned with his hand. "Hey, feather boy, hands off the car," he ordered.

Castiel said nothing. He backed away, and where his hand had been, the metal burned.

I will be there for them until the end, the car told him, steeling his spark. He would.

The angel's impassive stare met his spark. "So be it," he said.

0000

April, 2010

Stull had been the end. The end of everything.

He could do nothing when Sam left them or when Dean decided that he didn't care about the future. Castiel had given up and Bobby was helpless. They had nothing left.

But Dean proved that even though the world was ending, and there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it, he could still do one thing.

Only one.

"I'm not going to leave you, Sammy."

Dean smiled up at the Devil and spread his arms in front of the Impala. The shadow he cast, no matter how small, was as cold as ice on top of the impassive metal.

"I'm not going anywhere," Dean said.

There was nothing anyone could do to stop what happened next. Not the angel, who died. Not Bobby, who died. Not Dean, who was crushed into the hood of the Impala and never heard the breaking of the spark underneath.

The Impala, for a brief moment, tried to think of something to do. He could have driven forward. He could have—would have done something, anything, to save Dean, to save the last brother, the last Winchester he could still protect—

But any idea disintegrated in his processors when he realized how utterly helpless he was, no different than the human being beaten to death on top of him.

Because in that moment, he felt the hot eyes—full of fire—of the Devil land on him and he was paralyzed with fear. Lucifer stared at the motionless car after beginning his assault on Dean and then pausing when he finally noticed the vehicle.

He knew. He knew.

Lucifer could see the spark that hid so fragile beneath the metal, that had been luckily untouched for the entirety of his time on Earth, and that spark trembled under the gaze.

The Devil saw him that day and smiled. His spark shrieked in fear.

He should have done something. He should have forced a transformation. He could have bought Dean time by destroying Sam's body. Even if it the effort overloaded his spark, he could have destroyed the devil's vessel.

But it was still Sam. Even if Sam's smile was no longer his, or if his eyes were full of the fires of Hell, it was still Sam. Samuel. Sammy.

Autobot Tracks did nothing that day. He could do nothing.

He watched Sam fall into Hell.

At that moment, everything fell apart. The gate shut. The Horsemen rings vanished. There was silence among the dead and the very few survivors.

After years of violence and action, it was all over in a matter of seconds. An indifferent flash. A broken smile.

It was all over.

Tracks couldn't feel anything. He fell in upon himself and couldn't stop falling, deeper and deeper.

The angel came back as a miracle. So did Bobby. Dean remained.

And Sam was gone.

Gone.

He had seen the fall of an empire and the diaspora of his entire race. He had fought battles with tyrants and behemoths. He had dodged grenades, Shockwave's drones, and burning shrapnel on lonesome worlds. He had survived crashing to Earth as flaming, molten steel.

But this… how could he ever recover from this?

Dean drove away. He drove far away from Stull. Tracks couldn't keep up with where they were headed. It started to rain.

The angel told Dean that this was what Dean had wanted. Tracks almost screamed.

How could this be what any of them wanted?

He wanted Sam back. He wanted John back. He wanted all the years back where it was just them, just the three of them, driving together, being a family. He didn't care if they didn't know he was a part of it, because he was all the same. He had loved them, cherished them, protected them when he could.

But it hadn't been enough.

The angel looked at the dashboard, at Tracks, and said nothing. His eyes spoke volumes.

Tracks had failed them all in the end. Nothing he could ever do again would change it now.

Castiel left and his absence created a void inside Tracks. There was only one human left now. Just one.

Only one.

Dean rested his forehead against the steering wheel as they sat on the side of the road.

Tracks keened, the sound lost to the sound of rain falling and the human's sobs.

He wanted to reach out to the last brother. He wanted to tell him the truth—that he wasn't alone—but—

Dean didn't need that. Not from Tracks. Because that wasn't what Tracks was. Not even then, after all those years, all of the road traveled. Tracks was not Tracks.

He was home. And he would be for as long as Dean needed him to be.

It was all he could be.

.

End "Through the Quiet."

.

Next, for real this time, Crowley makes some tough choices.

A/Ns:
-Concerning the rest of the Season 4, Episode 3 of Supernatural, where Yellow Eyes attacks John and Mary's family, I have decided that final confrontation did not take place in the Impala, because I said so. Whoops.
-Considering that Bayverse (2007 movies) lacks a lot of the original cast of the Transformers franchise, I've blended in G1 (the cartoon) and various other spin-offs together into this to create a more solid background for the Transformers crossover here. Tracks originally came from the G1 cartoon series in the 1980s. Obviously, he will look utterly different here style-wise. Use your imagination.
-Exodermal metal – In my headcanon, the "skin" of the transformers is effectively living metal that can absorb foreign metal to reform itself, quite like some kind of living bandage.

For those who are unused to Transformers fan fiction/lore, here is a small glossary of terms and important names:

-Primus – their benevolent deity
-The Pit – the place where their evil deity, Unicron, exists. Sort of like Hell, but "bad mechs" are not doomed to go there or anything. More like…a cage.
-Well of Sparks – where all mechs go when they die. Think of samsara in Buddhism.
-Spark – soul/essence
-Pedes - feet
-Energon – the transformers' fuel source; a glowing blue substance that is ingested. They also bleed it, since it moves through their body via tubes.
-Shockwave – a Decepticon general and scientist, known for having a single optic for a face
-Megatron – the leader of the Decepticons; typically the main villain of the Transformers canon
-(Optimus) Prime – leader of the Autobots, who are the good guys
-Vector Sigma – a non-sentient mech on Cybertron, their home world, who recycles sparks from the Well of Sparks to create new life
-Matrix (of Leadership) – a key to access the Well of Sparks; basically, this is what Primes have to validate their Prime status as leaders of their people.
-Iaconian – an ethnic branch of transformers from the capitol city-state, Iacon. Also a language.
-Praxus – another city-state; the natives are known as Praxians. Their distinguishing features compared to other transformers are "door-wings," which are exactly what it sounds like. Praxian is also a language.