She was smiling more often. That fact took a while to catch up with Alexis, but the bending and uplifting of her mouth couldn't go unnoticed forever, nor the elated feeling that resided in her belly.
Her brother was alive. And while he had no news of her parents, just being with Josh gave her a burst of renewal. Even talking with him and telling him things that had happened to her helped despite the scary look her brother adopted as she did so.
"You're not going to have to worry anymore, Lex," Josh assured her. Tearing his jerky in half, he handed her a piece. "Resistance groups are growing. Even rumors that some humans have broken through the Decepticons strongholds. We still have a chance, and now that the Autobots are here; they have grown."
Alexis was still wary of the so-called Autobots. And despite the story that Sunstreaker had told, her mistrust was still firmly placed. She didn't care who this Optimus Prime was, or that when he supposedly arrived that the fight would be taken to the Decepticons. Didn't care that more and more Autobots were arriving every day, and that soon their planet would once more be their own. What she focused on, what she couldn't get away from, was why they hadn't arrived sooner. Why, if the Decepticons were their enemies, they hadn't been stopped already if it was easy as all that. The detail that the Autobots and Decepticons were still at war and after such a time did not give Alexis any confidence despite the Autobot's boastful words.
She stuck to her brother and Timothy, avoiding the transforming mech as much as possible, a task to be pitied from the start since none of the four were ever far apart.
On the third night into their travels, her brother wanted to know more of Tim. Josh appeared assured by what she told him. By the fourth night, the two men actually talked to each other as they held a conversation. The sight of Timothy and her brother sitting side by side was a strange one that while was reassuring, somehow made Alexis feel uneasy.
"He doesn't say much," Josh told her that following evening.
Alexis knew he wasn't speaking of Sunstreaker. The Autobot, who was also the human, Sunny, an idea that she still couldn't quite bend her mind around, in any of his forms, obviously loved the sound of his own voice, a phrase she had long heard, but never understood until then.
"He's not always like that," Alexis told her brother of Tim.
"He watches you too much," Josh objected.
"He's just being protective."
"I would say overly, Lex."
"I thought you two were getting along."
Her brother blinked hard. "Had what could be mistaken as a conversation, yes. But like him? Despite what he has done for you, Alexis, I am still uncertain. There is something about him that just doesn't seem right."
Alexis shifted in her sleeping bag, not liking what her brother was saying. She averted her gaze to the stars before her head tilted to the right. Timothy was lying down on a mat a good ten feet away. As if sensing that they were talking about him, he tilted his head. Shadowed eyes drifted over Alexis before he rotated his body away from her gaze.
She turned back to her brother, staring at his brown hair, still amused by how long it had grown, and that he had actually let it. He had a scar under his right eye that wasn't there when she had been captured, but by the looks of it appeared to now be permanent. They had both been through the ringer and then some, and Alexis couldn't help but wonder what other scars awaited them in the future. It wasn't a pleasant thought.
"I could say the same about your Sunny," Alexis threw back at Josh several long moments later.
"Perhaps we are both just being paranoid," her brother offered, although he didn't seem convinced. "We live in a time where we can't even trust what we feel."
Alexis mulled that over, disheartened and remembering her past mistakes. "Timothy is a good person. And despite what I say, I will even... try giving Sunstreaker the benefit of the doubt."
Josh grinned wide. "That is all I ask. And when we return to base, you will see all that I have told you is true. These Autobots are here to help, and some day Earth will be free. I see it, Lex, and feel it in my heart. Our prayers will not go unanswered."
Since she found her brother, the only time Alexis and Timothy were ever alone was when they traveled. Alexis traveling along with the Autobot and her brother had been insisted upon, but she refused. The thought of being inside the Autobot sent chills down her spine, a sign of her fear that was locked inside her paranoia of the Cybertronians.
However, she was just fine traveling with Tim, and since she had been given a communication device that she could speak to her brother with as they journeyed, the separation from Josh wasn't difficult at all.
When they reached that day's rest spot- an abandoned trailer park that had seen better days before the arrival of the Decepticons, her brother stayed inside the Lamborghini, a motion of his head letting her know that he was busy talking to Sunstreaker.
Making her way to a picnic table, she pulled out her water bottle. But not before stretching, back muscles straining against the precise pressure as she let out a long breath. Alexis loved the motorcycle; she did, especially when it showed off the very ingenuity of humanity and what they could accomplish when forced to. The bike was mainly solar-powered, something that she was totally unaware of until Timothy told her, his fingers motioning to the tiny panels that glittered along its side. And she had thought it was just decoration. But despite what it represented to her, the bike could be so uncomfortable some days. And the aches that followed after she got off the thing always led her to figuring out just how many hours they had traveled.
"You're taut."
She felt his words on her neck and couldn't believe how close Timothy had gotten without her even being aware of it, but Alexis supposed she should be used to that by now.
"Come with me," he ordered, leaving no room for argument.
Before Alexis knew it, she was leaning forward on an old trailer home. She stared at the green paint that was peeling on its frame before she shut her eyes. Alexis would have never let anyone touch her like this before, but the way his fingers dug into her flesh and at exactly the right spots felt so wonderful. And she wasn't aware how sore she was until his touch deepened, another sore spot found as he rubbed against it with pressure. A gasp left her mouth as her head rolled back in response.
Something changed. It was as if his hands were made of electricity. An undercurrent of sensations drifted up and down her spine, splaying down her legs and moving into her stomach. Alexis became aware that she could no longer feel Timothy's hands upon her. Only the feeling of energy winding up, around and all about while moving and drifting into places even she didn't know existed. She swore she heard Tim say her name, a dull rasp of breath against her shoulder that easily bypassed the fabric of her shirt and caressed the flesh underneath. Something else was occurring as her emotions seemed to merge with another's. Tantalizing whispers drifted through her consciousness, and just as they became louder, just when she was starting to understand what the voice wanted, everything shattered.
It took Alexis a long moment before she could open her eyes. But when she did, she found Tim on the ground behind her, Josh standing over him with fists tensed as he yelled at Timothy not to touch her. Getting into action, she moved in front of Tim. More out of protection for her brother than for her friend, but she didn't want either of them hurt.
"It's not what you think, Josh," she tried to reassure her brother, but at that point, she didn't really know what he thought at all.
"Not what I think?! He had you pushed up against the trailer with his hands moving on you, and if I didn't stop him, who knows where he would have taken it."
Alexis tried to find something to say to that, but was unable. She was also trying to understand what was going on. Alexis had heard of massages so deep that they had almost felt religious, but what Timothy had done to her was different from that. And what she had felt was so strange and exotic that she couldn't even find a name for the sensation.
"No wonder he is so protective of you!" Josh said with stern accusation. "No wonder he watches you all the time!"
Alexis' eyes rounded out as she stepped back. She tried to look at Timothy but couldn't. Her brother grabbed onto her and pulled her away. She managed to look over her shoulder. The human Autobot was walking toward Tim, a misplaced grin creeping on Sunstreaker's face.
"Where are you taking me?" Alexis asked. It wasn't as if there was anywhere to take her, but that didn't stop him from making a resolute effort as he lengthened the distance from where they had been.
Her brother didn't answer, just tugged her forward. When she was going to ask again, they stopped, winding behind the only tree on the road he had taken them along as he let go. It took several moments for Josh to calm himself, and she knew he wouldn't speak until he did.
"Has he tried anything with you before?" he finally managed. His words were now calm while his eyes betrayed the discomposure that was obviously working through him.
Blinking a couple of times, Alexis felt puzzled. What her brother had said before he grabbed her away, rattled in her brain. Yet, somehow she wasn't surprised, not really. She had known for some time that something was different about the way Tim treated her, but didn't really think of it.
Of course, her mind drifted back to the time in the shower, an occasion that she had forced herself to forget until right then with her brother standing in front of her. Alexis adverted her gaze. Everything felt awkward.
"Have you reciprocated?" Josh questioned, his brow rising high.
"Josh, you are taking things way out of proportion. Nothing happened between us. Not today, not before," Alexis told him as truthfully as she could. No way this side of reality would she discuss with her brother what happened in the shower.
"I don't think you should travel with him anymore," Josh said calmly, a spark of mistrust showing up in the downward curve of his mouth.
"Josh!" she fired back, quickly becoming exasperated. "OK, so he... he likes me. That isn't a reason to act like this. I was sore; he was helping out. Nothing more. Nothing less."
"So you wanted him to do that?"
"Ugh!" she half shrieked. "This is me! Alexis. Your sister! He's my friend. We've spent a lot of time together over the past months. I didn't realize, until now, how he felt about me, but I guess..."
Josh interrupted, "It's natural that he pins you against a dingy looking trailer and tries to take advantage of you?"
"I wasn't pinned!" she argued.
"He was leaning against you. You were pinned," Josh said dryly with a glimmer of humor, his mood already shifting back into a better place.
"I don't think I want to talk to you anymore." Alexis made a move to bypass Josh only to find her wrist grabbed onto as she was pulled back.
"Where do you think you are going?" he asked.
She pointed over her shoulder and down the long road toward the trailer park. "To apologize to Tim for your over response."
He let go of her hand and took a step toward her, voice lowering. "Fine, you say it was all innocent, you say nothing happened, I believe you." Josh's voice took on a dangerous edge. "But I'd better never see him touching you like that again, or I may forget myself and pound him into the ground."
She couldn't look Timothy in the eyes when she apologized. And it wasn't because she could feel her brother's gaze pounding into her back. But her curiosity overrode her embarrassment, so, looking up into those gray eyes of his; Alexis asked the question she needed an answer to, "What exactly did you do to me?"
He was stiff, his words curt and to the point, no emotion in them that she could detect.
"Eased away the tension. Didn't it work?" he finally replied.
"But I felt..." Alexis' words drifted away as she tried hard to put what she felt into words.
An intensity of emotion clouded through his gaze. Timothy's eyes searched her own and despite that they were being watched; he took an intimate step forward.
"What?" he inquired, interested.
But Alexis still didn't know what. Just knew that strange, unknown feeling had been a wondrous thing, an expression of being alive that was still pounding through her bloodstream. And he was right, she observed, the tension was gone.
"Do you believe in God?" Her question surprised Tim. She had asked him such a thing before, but this time, Alexis really wanted an answer, not some evasive turnaround that he always managed as he bypassed the question.
"Which one?"
She huffed, mouth pushing tightly together in offense. Of course, he was doing it again. So she was taken aback when he decided to really answer.
"No, I don't."
Alexis bit her lip and smiled a little. "But I do. I know what it feels like to be more than just myself. To feel another presence, to know I am not alone. And that is what I felt."
He was analyzing her words. Alexis could almost see him tearing them apart in his head, putting them back together and listening to them again.
And then he was taking the last step toward her, his hand reaching forward and pushing the hair out of her face. Alexis didn't know what she expected, but the raw possessiveness and underlining awe in his gaze did not match up with his words.
"You imagined it," Timothy finally responded. His words were strikingly terse before they drifted away into gentleness. "But your brother is right." He leaned in, his mouth so close to her ear that Alexis felt the expanse of breath that came with his utterance. "I can't stop watching you."
A shiver went down her spine at the fervent tone his voice had taken on. He backed away. Walking between the Autobot and his brother, he continued until he sat down on the motorcycle, confidently waiting for Alexis to join him.