TTWI: Woo! Chapter six! Whoa! Yeah! I dunno why, but that number is really giving me motivation.

Okay. Motivation gone.

Welp. 'Kay…

(Oh crap that A/N is from when I first started writing this. That was months ago XD oops)

But yeah, that's what happened. -_- Hopefully y'all aren't too mad at me. I am pretty inconsistent, and I did give a warning. These past couple months have been pretty busy in my defense, but mostly I'm just a lazy procrastinator, sorry!

[OH MY GOD I completely forgot to mention that I was updating my profile from time to time, to keep y'all up to date with the chapter's progress, and I kept forgetting to tell y'all in previous chapters. But I'm saying it now. I update my profile to say where I am with the story in terms of completion. Just thought I'd tell you. The updates are in the brackets, like these]

Uh, disclaimer (I always forget these): Ye I don't own like basically any of the original story just my damn OC and her pathetic-ness...

Samantha's hand twitched. Had she still been holding the bottle, it would've fallen, and probably shaken her out of her stupor. But no. She forcibly returned to the real world and let her gaze loll to the side. She didn't know what the giant beside her was expecting, but indifference surely wasn't it. She could feel his stare on her back.

"Samantha. I-"

"What?" she challenged, almost turning to face him.

She'd wanted to be indifferent. The absence of a reaction probably would've made Optimus leave her alone.

Well, that plan was short lived.

"You what?!" She almost choked on a cough, but managed to swallow it down."Before this gets too cliché, lemme just say that I. Don't. Give. A fuck." Sam's chest rose and fell with every pause. It was becoming even harder to breathe sitting down, so she stood up on shaky legs. "I'm tired, an' hungry, can't feel my fuckin' hand…" She massaged the numb appendage, silencing herself for a moment before her voice cracked any more than it naturally did.

She met Optimus' stunned gaze with heavy eyes, and hated herself for sounding so meek. "I jus' wanna sleep..."

Despite the fuzziness of her sleep-deprived vision, Sam managed to catch a glimpse of something in Optimus' eyes. Even though she felt ready to collapse, she found it in herself to wonder how such robotic eyes could convey any emotion at all. The thought made her think of herself, and she pushed the idea to the back of her mind.

Her breathing was slowing down, but more out of necessity than anything. She teetered dangerously to the left, but her legs were unresponsive. Instead, a giant rusted hand smoothly held her upright, and she felt herself falling into it, nearly but not quite asleep.

As the exhaustion of her body and the restlessness of her mind fought it out, she felt warmth radiate from the hand cocooning her. It bothered her, making her want to wriggle out of there, but her body needed the warmth, and insisted she stay. It couldn't be helped, in her opinion. Her limbs were barely working anyway.

She held in a content hum, and let her droopy eyes flutter close. She didn't want to look at Optimus when she apologized.

"I-" She tensed, and it seemed he sensed it, as he slightly adjusted his hand to better accommodate her. It pissed her off, but she remembered that perhaps the foreign energy within her was making her irrational. "I'm… sorry…"

She might have said it through clenched teeth, but she felt some of the stiffness leave her shoulders, and her breaths weren't as shallow. "What the fuck is going on?" The words left her mouth in a small whisper. "It's never lasted this long…"

It was a while before Optimus responded, and when he did, she was reminded of how well these Autobots could actually hear. Much like herself, who would have been able to literally hear the gears turning in his head were she not in her present state.

"What, exactly, has never lasted this long?" From his mouth, it didn't sound that much like a question. Which wasn't to say he knew what she was talking about. He just sounded like he knew, somehow. Sam got to thinking if this quality of his voice was part of what allowed him to be such a renown leader. Against her will, she felt comforted.

"It's… You wouldn't get it," she muttered, sinking into his hand a bit more, if that was even possible. "It's not complicated or anything, it's just… weird…" She was glad he could hear well, in that instant. It meant she didn't have to strain her throat at all, almost. She heard him give off a "hmm" sound, or maybe she felt it, but it made her want to elaborate. Ironically, his lack of pressure for answers made her more willing to give them to him. Sam traced it back to her training.

Her eye twitched, and in the split second it was open, she spotted Optimus eyeing her neck.

"It's the collar," she admitted after a heavy sigh. "I'm sure ya saw what they did with it…" Her voice had dropped on remembering.

"They electrocuted you." He didn't waste time with niceties this time, for some reason or another. His voice had dropped as well. Enough for her to glance up at him warily. She saw the way his mouth was turned, and the slight shift to the rest of his features made him look so inexplicably angry that she squeezed her eyes shut and tucked her face away.

Again, he seemed to sense it, and she could feel him force himself to relax. Part of her was absolutely disgusted with what was going on between them, but she knew why she didn't try to get away. And she didn't want to think about it.

Sam hummed her affirmation in favor of nodding and causing herself discomfort. "Thing is, they didn't just use like, electricity or whatever," she whispered. "It was like, energy from… from Decepticon… remains," she told him, slowing down. He tensed, and she could tell what he was thinking. "You're right. Kinda. If I were infused with that stuff non-stop for long enough, I'd probably become some evil thing… or something."

It sounded a lot lamer when she said it out loud. She just didn't want to be dramatic.

"But since it only ever came in short bursts, most of the time anyway-" She added that last part bitterly. "-it means the worst it did was make me very pissy. I will admit though, that I think the repeated exposure to it kinda made me a real jerk. At least, more of a jerk than usual." She managed to huff at that.

"It's reassuring that you retained your terrible sense of humor," Optimus finally replied. He said it with such lack of hesitance that it freaked Sam out. He knew Sam wouldn't take offense, and ironically it was that knowledge of her that made her reclude again.

"That's not creepy," she wanted to say, but she knew it'd completely shatter whatever was going on. She'd have to run away or something if she did, for the sake of avoiding the awkwardness, so she didn't. For her sake.

"To get to the point," she began again, trying not to let Optimus' comment bother her, "the energy makes my eyes red. Typical," she added, lip curled in slight disgust. "But the pissiness and redness is supposed to fade a little after a minute, in time for my next elec… Well, whatever, point is it should be gone by now."

"But it's not."

"Buuut it's not," she kind of sing songed.

They sat in silence for a long while.

Sam tried to relax, but she could feel the other's restlessness. Like he was just itching to do something.

"If you're uncomfortable you can move, ya know." She was still quiet, but her voice was rough again. "Just fuckin' toss me on my ass if you're tired of holdin' me." She had to admit that she said it for her sake. It wasn't just him that didn't let her relax, it was herself. She was done with lying still.

"Would you allow me to remove it?"

It was so sudden that Sam didn't process it until several seconds after he said it. In fact, she only knew that Optimus had made sound. She didn't even fully realize that he'd said something coherent at all.

"What?" she croaked. She was beginning to feel frustrated, and it annoyed her, which made her lip curl in slight disgust again. She didn't know why she was feeling so disgusted by everything lately, but she was. She just knew her eyes were still red. She couldn't see it, obviously, but she could feel it. She wasn't a complete idiot.

Or maybe she was, as Optimus had spoken once again and she hadn't realized it.

"Wait, what?"

Optimus blinked at her. "Would you be open to me, removing, the collar."

Yep. For him to speak to her like that, she truly must have been an idiot. Or so she thought. She also wondered for a split second why he was speaking so... formally? She wasn't sure if that was the right word.

She was still looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "Um." Her eyes darted. "What."

Optimus, almost to her amusement, opened his mouth to repeat himself, but she shifted, and when she tried to sit up, she felt him pressing against her back to help her. She didn't know what it was, but she assumed it was a finger or something.

"Nonono," she rushed out, holding out her hand. "I heard you that time," she assured him, eyes closed. "Just the thought of it. It's just-" She cut herself off, and ran a gloved hand through her hair as well as she could without dropping the hoodie. "...What..?" She was whispering again.

She didn't want to think about it too much. It'd probably just end up being disappointing, whatever the outcome, and she'd have built it up for nothing. "I… It shouldn't be hard. What made it damn near impossible before was the magnet… That fucking battery…" she hissed, shaking her head. The thought infuriated her way more than it had any right to.

It took a minute of deep breaths and mental preparation, but she eventually tilted her head to expose her neck to the bot. "...Can ya do it with one hand? Or ya wanna put me down first?"

Optimus said nothing, and brought her up to eye level. He didn't have to for Sam to see the concentration on his face. She avoided looking at him. It was difficult when he kept angling her in different directions. The girl wondered if he was taking this chance to get a better look at her, and she could only be grateful the sun hadn't risen yet.

He raised his other hand, slowly, and it closed in on her neck carefully. Sam felt her chest and throat clog up, felt her breathing stop, but Optimus was already pulling his hand away. She willed away the oncoming tears of panic, blinked to ease the sting, and let her shoulders sag.

Distracted as she was (as ever), she jolted when a flash of red caught her eye. After a bit, she turned to investigate, and immediately regretted it. It turned out Optimus had been cutting through the collar with a fucking laser, and it'd struck her when she'd moved.

She'd jumped back and away so much that she'd fallen out of Optimus hand. He quickly caught her, after letting out a short gasp, and he held her in his palms. Surprisingly, she sat up with her knees drawn to her chest. Her hand was hanging in midair just above the skin of her neck, caught between cradling and avoiding touching her wound. The heat of the laser had kept it from actually bleeding, but only because it'd basically burnt the skin before it could, "sealing" the wound.

There wasn't much Optimus could do, and Samantha seemed to be tolerating the pain well. She had somehow kept her sunglasses on, and the only sign of any suffering was perhaps her open mouth and trembling hand. The latter, however, was a common occurrence.

Her condition was vague enough for him to begin to ask how she felt, but she cut him off. "Why didn't you warn me?!"

By the look of his face, that was definitely not the reaction he'd been expecting. And when he answered, Sam realized it was for a good reason.

"I asked y-"

"You asked if you could help with the collar, not if you could shoot fucking lasers at me!"

Optimus didn't seem to know how to answer without sounding like a child. Sam knew there wasn't much he'd be able to say besides a "but I did!" If he did, in fact, warn her, which she very much doubted.

"Samantha," he began, with utmost seriousness. "I explained what I wanted to do, and asked for your permission. And you gave it."

Samantha wasn't in the mood for the blame game, or the denial game, or whatever it was. She'd only heard the phrase "in passing" back at the labs, because someone was always getting yelled at, and she had asked Yu about it.

No, instead she only gawked at Optimus, eyes blown wide behind dark lenses. Her reply came out as a shaky breath. "What?"

She instinctively shook her head, which caused pain to bloom from her wound again. She didn't show it. Optimus would probably ask her to tell him how it felt, and she didn't want her distracted mind to forget what she wanted to address.

"No, there's no way I told you that that was okay." Her stinging, unblinking eyes stared at nothing. "I never said anything..!" She resisted the urge to lift her glasses and rub her eyes. "...You know what, I changed my mind. I don't wanna talk about it right now." She pointed at him, brows furrowed. "Remind me about it later, alright?"

Optimus nodded, and began to ask about her neck again.

"It's nothin' to worry about," she answered absently, shrugging off the question. "I'm used to it, wearing this collar for a year was a real pain in the neck. Ha. And it's not like all the nerves in my neck aren't already fuckin' dead, anyways."

There was no response from Optimus, but he picked something up from the dirt he sat on and placed it on his palm, alongside Sam. She waited for Optimus to move his hand. When she saw the shine of her collar, she nearly fell off her perch all over again.

She glared at it, and kicked in its direction without actually touching it. She even went as far as to reach up for her neck again, as if she were protecting herself from having the collar put back on. It was evident she had an indescribable fear of it. "Get that thing away from me, and fucking destroy it."

Optimus did so without question, picking up the two pieces of metal and crushing them in his hand. He made somewhat of a show of it, as if to prove to the human in his hand that it was no longer a threat.

Samantha had been holding her breath the whole time, and when the dust and small chunks of metal fell from the Optimus' hand, she allowed a full, deep breath to leave her. All was quiet for a long stretch of time, but finally she sat up a little straighter, like she'd been relieved of an invisible weight. The sky was pale blue, almost gray, a sign that the sun would rise soon. A few birds started chirping on some far off bushes, and the breeze picked up.

As it began to push some of Sam's hair around, she realized how cold she was, and sighed. "I… I need to sleep."

She was set down, and she watched Optimus transform in awe that she refused to display. She shivered, and shielded her face from the dust the wind was stirring. "I'm gonna head back," she called, louder than she'd meant, and coughed. Turning around to avoid swallowing more sand, she heard a creak. She slowly glanced over her shoulder and realized, with a nearly imperceptible smile, that Optimus had opened his door.

She was light. Light as a feather.

She shouldn't have been.

But she was.

She shouldn't have been alive.

But she was.

She shouldn't have been tortured.

But she was.

He shouldn't have been responsible for her death.

But he was.

TTWI: OH MY DEAR I know this took forever and it's so damn short but yeah. This has been done for some time now, but I wanted to add stuff to the end but decided not to. I'll leave it off here.

Also, I think chapter 4 was the chapter that could have gone in a million directions. I planned a lot of scenarios out but unoriginal me decided to go with the given so I used the "original scene". I wonder if y'all would've minded me taking it in a different direction…

No but, we're finally getting into the part that I've been wanting to write. It's pretty sap or whatever but you know.

There's for sure typos in this, please point them out I wouldn't mind if y'all gave me a literal list of typos (maybe a little, sheesh XD) I don't plan these out anymore since the last time I did it I got super caught up in potential alternate storylines XD so I'll see where the next chapter takes me.

Let me know if this dynamic between these two is interesting at all. If it's too cliché or weird or something I could change it. Maybe…

Can I still say R&R..?

[And for the guest who reviewed on this chapter, thank you! I love all that you've drawn from what muddled information I give. I know now that OC-insert fics proly shouldn't revolve around the OC, but eh, too late to change it now. The part about Optimus is pretty spot on. Even in the story this is supposed to be a rewrite of, I wrote an unpublished chapter from his point of view, about how he wanted her to remember but couldn't bring himself to tell her himself.

So happy you thought this was good, (it's not XD) and though I seriously doubt you were being serious with the god bless you thing, thanks! XD]

[now that I think of it, would it be better if I replied to reviews here, within the chapter? Or should I stick to pming y'all? I think I'd like answering you guys in the chapter, but then you'd have to wait till the next update. OR I could do both XD]