Alice dreamt of home that night, dreaming that everything was as it should have been, that she had not been disrupted from her home and life before. When Alice woke up to the sound of loud metallic footfalls, she would turn in her cot and place her pillow over her head, trying to drown out the noise, though to no avail. She had gotten practically no sleep when there had been bots moving around, and to wake her with the truth so abruptly from such a nice dream was just rude. Realizing that she probably wasn't going to get much more sleep, as the bots seemed to be coming back from their vigil, Alice would shoot up in realization. She was missing school.
Alice would start putting together her bag before Ratchet would pipe up, having noticed her bustle. "And where do you think you're going?" He would ask as she tried to brush her hair at least so she could make it there on time, morning breath be damned.
Alice would stop for a moment, slowly starting to wonder if she was even allowed to go to school anymore, which would be a bummer if she couldn't, as she was so close to graduating. "Getting ready for school?" Alice said with a questioning tone, not to imply that Ratchet couldn't observe that, but more as if she was indirectly asking if she was allowed.
Ratchet would look back to his monitor before him, having just woken up himself, and would pinch between his eyes for a moment. "I don't think you're allowed to go, Alice. Agent fowler said specifically to keep you under constant observation, meaning someone would have to sit outside the school, you would need to have an active comm link on you that I would have to waste my time monitoring it and your location." Ratchet complained some, shaking his helm at her for wanting him to do some extra work for education he thought was somewhat useless.
"Oh come on, I'm so close to graduating. I'm not going to let this little bump in my life get in the way of my future! I want to go to college for marketing so I can open up my own store for witchcraft supplies one day, and I'm not going to let you not wanting to listen in on my conversations and lessons, and occasionally having to make sure I'm still at the school, get in the way of that." Alice protested as a couple of the other bots looked on. Alice had a point, and education seemed to be important to humans for the sake of their future. They weren't at war like they were.
"Activate your comm and leave it on. If you turn it off, I'll have to interrupt your lessons to call you back. But I'll take you." Arcee would pipe up out of nowhere, it would be odd if someone saw her missing from the school anyway, and afterwards Alice could catch a ride back with Bee like she usually did. Ratchet however was about to protest, that she needed to be under constant observation, and that it would only count really as partial, Arcee would roll her eyes some at the medic. "Education is severely important to human lives, so unless Fowler can grant her a graduation, or whatever it's called, or we plan on taking her to cybertron with us when this is all over, she's going to need some kind of plan for her future here on earth." Arcee would argue, having heard many conversations between Jack and his mother, June, on the matter of education, and having spoken with Jack on it too, she and Bumblebee probably understood it the best.
"I'll make sure my link stays on, things just might get muffled but I'll do my best. I do have to put my phone away for some classes, so it will have to be in my bag, or I'll get in trouble and it will get taken away. I'll even sit near the window in every class so that Arcee can see me if she drives past." Alice tried to assure Ratchet, who looked like he wanted to argue more on the matter, but dropped it after a stern look from Arcee that mildly suggested that they could take it up with Optimus later.
As much as Alice hated motorcycles, she would get ready rather fast and Arcee would drive her to school, where she would dart inside to get to class, even though she was already late. She was only a few months away from graduation, and she wasn't going to let Fowler get in the way of it. Alice did as she said she would, keeping her phone on and the call active so no rules were being broken and sitting near the windows, though back at base, when Optimus woke up, he would look around for his charge, wondering where she had gone off to. He knew she couldn't have gone far on foot, nor would she have left so much of her stuff here if she had gone.
"Ratchet, where has Alice gone?" Optimus would ask his medic, only to hear the comm link active and note Arcee was missing. He could hear what sounded like a human lesson going on, and for a moment, thought Ratchet had actually taken an interest in learning human ways, only to see that he had Alice's comm active.
"She's at school, Arcee is monitoring her through the windows and she has her comm link constantly active. She insisted on going, not wanting Agent Fowler messing up her future, whatever that's supposed to mean." Ratchet grumbled, shaking his helm while he tried to get some work done despite the unrelated, very basic lesson going on in the background. Optimus would smile a little at Ratchet, happy that in his absence, the rather hardened medic had made a compromise for someone else's benefit. He knew that Ratchet was capable of such things, it was just unfortunately a rare occurrence since the war began.
Before the war, Ratchet used to do all kinds of things to benefit others. He wouldn't just help them as a medic, but as a good samaritan, even offering some of his own energon rations to the less fortunate. Ratchet was always an autobot at heart, even before their race split into the two factions. Optimus would take this chance to scan over Alice's area, however. It was off to the side to give her some privacy and space from the other kids if she needed it while they happened to be here, but at the same time, she was still visible for the most part so she could be monitored, per Fowler's instruction. He took note that it didn't really look like it was comfortable for her, living out of boxes and bags. He wished that there was something he could do for her to monitor her better, while also giving her some privacy, though those are completely opposite things.
Optimus wondered if it might be a good thing for him to spend some social time with Alice when he had the chance to, it would offer her some time away from the base and she could hopefully feel less displaced. If anyone knew what that felt like, it was them, being ripped up from their entire life and world, into something completely alien, Alice was undergoing the same thing, and he feared what would happen to her once they returned to Cybertron, if this was the treatment that she was getting now. Optimus would close his eyes for a moment and sigh quietly, banishing the thoughts from his mind and spark, he had more important things to worry about.
Alice was soon finished school with the other kids, and she caught a ride home with Bee, turning her phone off and noting that it was now on low battery from being on all day. She would sigh a little but look to Raf who was seated next to her, while she made the appearance of a driver. "How was your day, Raf?" Alice asked, noticing that he was already working on his homework, Raf loved learning things, and was quite the prodigy, though she could understand where it came from, as she learned in a very similar way when it came to her witchcraft, everyone just had their thing, and his happened to be extremely useful to the world.
"It was good, yours?" Raf asked, looking up with an innocent smile. Alice would shrug some and instinctively keep her eyes on the road while Bumblebee worried about driving.
"I was late, but after some compromise, I'm just happy I was allowed to go." Alice said, though Raf looked confused at the statement for a moment, long enough for Alice to know she had to clarify. "I know you were probably tuning the whole argument out yesterday, but I'm staying with the bots at base. It was that or some unknown military facility under the watch of specially trained soldiers. I'm glad that Optimus was there advocating for me." Alice explained, but she would move her gaze out the window, wondering what would have happened if she had just ignored Jack and his bike. She would still be cooking dinner for her father every night, barely scraping by with him. She hoped that she might be able to give her father some compensation for taking her away, as she knew her father was going to have a hard time supporting himself.
Raf would nod in response a little bit, seeming to understand that it was still a sensitive topic for her, so he would turn back to his homework, studying in silence for the ride back to base. When they arrived with Jack and Miko in tow behind them, Alice would get out and go up to the human area to get her own homework done. For the most part, that's what each of the kids were doing, aside from Miko, who was fiddling around trying to play a videogame with Bulkhead, or put a movie on with him. Alice wanted to say something to the girl, but decided to just let her be, remembering her thoughts earlier. Miko's thing was music, and she didn't need to worry much about math and science to get to where she dreamed.
After they were done doing their homework, Jack would go with Arcee to try and set some new speed records, and Raf would be sitting over by Ratchet, going over some science questions that he had. Miko was still watching a movie, and both Bulkhead and Bumblebee were watching with her. Seeing that she had a little privacy, Alice would go to do a couple of readings for clients, though because she had been slacking in her advertising as of late, there wasn't much for her to do. Realising this, Alice decided to go and kick back and watch the movie with Miko, hoping that things would be okay between them. Miko didn't protest as she came to sit down on the couch with her, which to Alice was a good sign.
They watched a monster movie together while the bots went about doing their business, Bulkhead and Bumblebee watching as much of the movie as possible before they were called away to help Optimus with raiding an energon mine. This got the attention of both Alice and Miko despite the movie, and Raf would have popped his head up from his research too, to listen in. "An energon mine, that's your lifeblood, right?" Alice asked, getting up and walking to the railing, Miko close in tow.
"Yes, our energon stores are nearly depleted, and we have no choice but to put our lives at risk for more. There are very few energon deposits that are not held by the Decepticons." Optimus would say to his charge, he knew she probably wanted to help like the other kids, but he couldn't think of a way that she could do so safely.
"Can I help somehow?" Alice asked, leaning on the railing as she looked up at Optimus.
"Unfortunately not, Alice." Optimus would say, but he then got an idea. "If we are able to clear out the mine, I will send a message to Ratchet and all of you can come." Optimus would say, offering a small smile to her before he would go off to the ground bridge so Ratchet could send them out to their destination. Optimus would look back at Alice just before he transformed and drove through the bridge quickly with Bumblebee and Bulkhead.