Autumn POV

Chromia and Arcee watched me as I drank down the cube of energon. Then Optimus nodded and smiled at me. It was weird because he only had to stand there to look huge and scary. I mean… he's never done anything to me, and I don't even remember seeing him get mad… but he's huge! I'm over three times taller than I was as a human and he still makes me look small.

"Arcee, why don't you and Chromia take Autumn somewhere private so she can relax? I don't like seeing her that tense." Elita told them before turning back to Jazz.

"While they're taking proper care of Autumn, the three of you can tell me what's been going on here… especially with Autumn." Elita demanded firmly.

Arcee and Chromia started pulling me towards the area where everyone's quarters were. I didn't want to go with them. I don't know them, and I already knew that they were fragged off about something to do with me. I can't even hit Jazz yet, so how was I supposed to fight off two bots at the same time, when Jazz is only one? I couldn't and I knew it!

:[Safety, peace, comfort, protectiveness]: Flowed through my bond, and somehow, I could tell that it wasn't only coming from Prowl, but it was also coming from one of his siblings and being relayed through him.

"Autumn, I would like for you to accompany Arcee and Chromia. You may relax they will not allow you to be harmed. In fact, I believe that the odds are in favor of them being more protective of you than even Bluestreak has ever been." Prowl told me when I looked over at him.

I nodded my helm and followed the two bots nervously. I had no idea where they were going to take me. I didn't like being away from the ones I knew, because at least, I knew what to expect from them. Even if I had to watch him really, really close, even being near Ironhide was better than being with a pair of strangers!

Arcee POV

I could tell from the position… well positions of her rapidly twitching wings that Autumn wasn't happy about going with us. We took her to a set of quarters that Optimus had informed us were unoccupied, but were also now fully furnished. Once we stepped inside, Autumn seemed to relax a little after looking around. I gently moved her to the couch where she sat down with her door wings displaying her sadness, nervousness, apprehension, and fear. I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to this femme to frighten her in such a way. I moved so that I was kneeling in front of her while getting ready to speak gently.

"Autumn… I need you to tell us the truth. No matter how bad you think things are, you are not the one in trouble here! They might be though!" Chromia said firmly beating me to the shot.

I watched in silence as Autumn tried to tell us what her life had been like up to now. She spoke softly for a long time, but I was unable to make sense of any of it because she was stuttering, hesitating, and even repeating herself. She had pulled her legs up to her torso, and wrapped her arms around them. It was the closest thing I'd ever seen to a fetal position in a bot that wasn't lying down. I looked up at Chromia to see that she was experiencing the same confusion that I was. At that moment the door slid aside, and Optimus walked in with a tray. I could see three small cubes on it, but nothing else from where I was knelt down.

"Autumn… Jazz has been trying to get the opportunity to give these to you, but many things have kept coming up. He said that this is a good time for it. He would have brought them to you, but he and Prowl are busy talking with Elita, which is why he asked that I bring them." Optimus said as he set the tray down on the couch next to Autumn.

"Enjoy." He said with a smile before walking out.

"He said that Jazz gave those to him. Where in the name of Primus did Jazz get energon treats and mineral wafers?" Chromia demanded in surprise.

I couldn't help but agree with her question, because I knew there was no way that this base had the ability to create such things yet. I would have easily suspected him of hoarding a bit of aged high grade… but this?

I shook my helm to clear my processors. There was only one possible reason for Jazz to give up something like this so easily. It could only be because he actually liked Autumn; otherwise no one would ever have known that he had them, because he could easily have kept them for himself.

Autumn POV

They took me to a room that was all too familiar. It was familiar because it was the room that had been mine before I was ordered to stay with Prowl. The one called Arcee took me over to the couch and I sat down with her kneeling in front of me. Then I was told to tell them about my life, and I tried. I told them about my father, how mean he always was, and how he had always hurt me. I told them about how he had killed my mother right in front of me and made me watch. I told them how Blue had found me, and how I'd finally been brought here. Then I told them about how I'd become a bot and how it had hurt more than anything I could remember. I told them everything, but I was so scared and nervous that I kept stuttering and repeating myself. Finally, I just went quiet and pulled my legs up on the couch and wrapped my arms around them.

That was when Optimus came in. I swear he's huge! He looks big enough and strong enough to break me in half with only one servo. He held out a tray of stuff that had three cubes of energon on it and two different kinds of other things. There were a bunch of those, and they sort of looked like little blue brownies and crackers. He put the tray next to me before walking out.

The one called Chromia wanted to know where Jazz got them. She called those things energon treats and mineral wafers. I'd never seen them before, and they looked kind of strange.

Arcee and Chromia slid a small table over in front of the couch I was sitting on, and then pulled up a couple of chairs for them to sit in. Arcee put the tray on the table and then handed Chromia a cube of energon before handing me one too.

"This one is obviously for you, but you really need to try the wafers and treats. Trust me, you'll like them." Chromia told me.

"I have yet to meet a bot that hasn't liked them." Arcee said with a smile.

I reached out and picked up one to look at it. It looked kind of like a big brownie that was bot sized instead of for humans. I took a small bite and immediately spit it out. White chocolate! Yuck! I've always hated white chocolate! I looked around for a trash can to put the stuff in, but didn't see anything, so I put it on the table, and downed about half the cube of energon to wash that nasty taste out of my mouth. I shuddered hard before looking at the blue crackers. If they were anything like the other ones, then I wasn't going to try them.

Chromia picked up the big chunk of treat and broke off a small piece before popping that in her mouth.

"There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. Do you not like it?" Chromia asked me curiously.

I shook my helm. "It tastes like white chocolate, and that stuff's gross! I never liked that stuff when I was still human either." I answered with a frown.

"Well then try a wafer, maybe you'll like those. At least, I hope you will." Arcee suggested nicely.

I really didn't want to. Not with how that treat had tasted, but I didn't want these two bots fragged off at me either. I picked up one of the blue cracker looking things and took a small bite of it. My optics shot wide in surprise. I was sure that I wasn't going to like it, but this was good! It was like a mix of coconut and banana pudding, but it was hard like a cracker. Weird, but good. Before I knew it, the cracker thing was gone and I was drinking a bit more of my energon to wet my mouth a little, because that thing was dry just like a cracker.

Arcee POV

:I know that Autumn is with you, so see if you two can get her to take in some more energon. She hasn't been refueling properly.: ~ Ratchet

:I don't think that's going to be much of a problem for now. It seems that she's very fond of the mineral wafers, and she has to use energon to wash them down just like everyone else.: ~ Arcee

:Where the slag did you get mineral wafers?: ~ Ratchet

The surly tone of the medic officer was understandable right then, because such things were now hard to obtain.

:Optimus brought them in saying that he got them from Jazz.: ~ Arcee

:There's no telling where he got them from. For all we know he could have stolen them from Megatron himself.: ~ Ratchet

:Nah, Ah didn' steal em from ol Megs, but Ah did steal em from the Cons!: ~ Jazz sent smugly. :Ah think Wheeljack has da right stuff ta make em too. If he can, an she like em, den we got a good way ta make sure she gets a proper fuelin.:

:He's in recharge right now, but I'll put him to work on that as soon as he emerges.: ~ Ratchet

Autumn was slowly reaching for a second wafer while watching Chromia and I closely. I could almost swear that she was fully prepared to be denied further access to them. That was when Elita walked in. I could tell that she wasn't at all pleased, but as soon as she spotted Autumn, she assumed a rather cheerful attitude.

"Go ahead and take a treat Autumn. Jazz supplied those strictly for you, so they're all yours." Elita instructed gently.

"She doesn't seem to like the treats." I began.

"What? Why ever not?" Elita demanded while looking at Autumn in disbelief.

"They… they taste like… like white chocolate… and I never liked that stuff." Autumn answered hesitantly.

"You do like the mineral wafers though… don't you?" Elita asked.

Autumn simply nodded her helm.

"Then I want you to eat as many of them as you can." Elita replied with a smile.

"What… what if I eat the whole pile?" Autumn asked nervously.

"You'd probably make Jazz laugh about it." I said quickly.

"He might try to tease her a bit for it though, so if that happens Autumn, I want you to tell one of us so we can put a stop to it." Chromia added seriously.

I could see a look of absolute shock on Autumn's faceplates. It was as if she expected us to be angry at her for wanting something as vital to her frame as mineral wafers. Every adult bot knew that wafers supplied essential minerals such as zinc, silicon, gold, titanium, iron, quartz, and cobalt for developing frames. They were also good for a frame that had recently undergone repairs.

"Autumn, these are for you. Jazz made sure that you received them. Now if you don't like the treats, that is perfectly acceptable. However… since you like the wafers, I want you to eat as many of those as you comfortably can. If you don't eat them all, or if you do, it's fine either way. Understand?" Elita said gently, but firmly.

Autumn nodded her helm and took another wafer almost guiltily, before she looked at each of us. "Aren't you going to eat some?"

"If you would like us to, then yes, we will. However, these are for you Autumn, not us. Since you don't like the treats and we do, then we'll eat those, while you enjoy the wafers." Elita smiled.

Elita POV

I spent a bream or two listening to what Jazz, Prowl, and Optimus had to tell me about Autumn. The whole sad sordid truth. They even sent me a data burst of the broadcast featuring her human creator called a father. Autumn's past simply got worse the more I was told. It was certainly no surprise that she was nervous upon meeting others for the first time. After the last thing her sire had done to her, it was surprising that Autumn was still mentally functional at all. The newest bot in our ranks was going to have more problems than Red Alert, Bluestreak, and Prowl combined.

It was at that point that Jazz pulled two small packages out of a subspace compartment and handed them to Optimus.

"Hey Optamus, Give these ta Autumn will ya? I been tryin ta find a good time ta do it, but things just keep comin up. Ah think she'll like em. Ah know it ain't nuthin like she was used ta eatin as a human, but at least it's sumthin." Jazz explained quickly.

I watched curiously as Optimus merely nodded and left. He wouldn't do something like that unless there was a very good reason for it. I looked at Jazz and asked him about it.

"Autumn's only seen Optamus a few times. Even though he's nevah threatened her, his size still scares her. So we're tryin ta find ways for the bots ta interact with her with out scarin tha spark out o her. Last time Optamus had to deal with her, Ratch had just dissolved her sparkbond with ol Bluestreak an created a Guardian bond with Prowl. Tha loss o dat bond with Blue… it hurt her… bad! She even wished that she'd offlined herself before it could happen. Physically it didn't affect her at all, but she relied on that bond with Blue like it was a life line. She got his opinion on everythin she had ta deal with… an that includes meetin others." Jazz said heavily.

"So there's Optamus tryin ta talk to her. He wound up givin her a cube o energon that had some gold in it for her circuits. Tha humans consider that ta be a valuable metal, so it's expensive to em. Optamus held her while tryin ta talk her inta drinkin it. It was Blue dat finally convinced her." Jazz told me seriously.

"It doesn't surprise me that Optimus would try to help care for a sparkling, but why would Bluestreak need to convince her to drink a cube of energon simply because it had some gold in it?" I asked.

"Ya gotta understand somethin here Elita… Autumn thinks she's expendable. Everythin that's been done ta her has convinced her that she's disposable! She don't think she's worth wastin gold on. We been workin real hard ta change that, but it ain't somethin that's gonna happen fast. She wants ta be a Medic, an she's been learnin everythin she can, as fast as she can." Jazz answered.

"That is going to stop! She will need to adjust to being an adult bot before she tries to learn a profession. If she's less than a fourth of a vorn in age, she'll need the opportunity to be a sparkling first!" I said firmly.

Suddenly Jazz smiled at me. "See? I knew that you three showing up would be one of the best things that could happen for Autumn. She needs friends, and since she saw her carrier offlined when she was only a few human years in age, she will also need a femme who can act as a concerned carrier. She needs that Elita… right now she needs that a lot more than she knows." He said seriously.

I knew that Jazz was being completely honest with me, because he had actually dropped his accent. That was something that he rarely did, and because he was doing so out of concern for Autumn, told me that he and the others really were trying their best to help her adjust to being among them. The fact that she had been born as a human was disturbing though. I had seen humans, and their small fragile bodies with such short lives were vastly different from our own. I couldn't even begin to calculate the complexity of the process needed to convert her body into a frame while preserving her memories. That was when something occurred to me.

"How was her sparkbond with Bluestreak dissolved? That's only possible when one of the two is offlined." I demanded suspiciously.

"I can tell ya… but ya ain't gonna believe me."

"Try me!" I replied insistently.

"Soundwave was in her processors; deletin memories all over tha place. Ah'm pretty sure he was gonna make her a slave for some reason or other, but then he must o found out that she was still a sparkling, an he restored her memories an passed a message to Ratch. He passed that message to Prowl, who then passed it ta me an Optamus. Turns out that tha reason he was able to get in her processors was because she didn have any firewalls or antivirus programs. All she had was a partial memory o her human carrier ta defend her from anything bad. Once Soundwave figured out that she was still a sparkling, he made a message in her processors. That message contained tha means ta dissolve tha sparkbond, an gave us some firewalls, antivirus programs an other stuff suitable for a sparkling. Ratch has been uploadin tha stuff into her processors a bit at a time. Ratch told us that her personality crystal is split, an that there's two personalities in Autumn's processors. So far, we've only seen tha one that's damaged, with a lot o rage and despair. Tha other one is supposed ta be gentle, careing, compassionate, an lovin, but we ain't seen that one yet." Jazz told me heavily.

This information was just too much to accept all at once. My helm started to ache with the amount of unwanted information I had received. I did not want to believe that any of it was true… but I didn't have that luxury. Autumn needed both our presence, and our help, and for that I could only be satisfied that we three femmes had finally arrived so that we could help her.