Disclaimer: As usual, I still do not own Transformers. If only...
Warning: This is a "short" chapter for a reason. I'm warning you now – this chapter may be triggering for anyone who is recovering from alcoholism or has family that is. It is not graphic, by any means, but it's not "pretty" either, and is rather emotionally jarring (I think). Anyway, hope you enjoy and please review! :)
Chapter Five:
Barricade was in heaven, just as much as his human charge. His spark sang and pulsated greatly as Maeve pushed the speedometer ever further.
Eighty miles an hour, ninety, one hundred, one-ten... as the needle moved ever further, as his tires gripped the asphalt, Barricade was ecstatic and enjoying himself greatly. He loved the feeling of the human "driving" him, and struggled to contain himself and not drive faster than human cars allowed for.
He zoomed along the asphalt track, stirring up dust and tiny rocks that the old man had missed in his cleaning of the track. Barricade didn't care.
This... this was something he had not allowed himself for ages. It was soothing.
It was like the days on Cybertron, when he raced with his team.
The Race Track Patrol... a sharp pang hit Barricade's spark as he remembered his teammates. He missed them greatly.
Barricade missed Ground Hog's medic skills, their deep friendship, and his team attitude, who often kept Barricade in check when he needed it the most.
He missed Roller Force, that crazy insane mech, who pissed off pretty much everyone but for all of Barricade's hits and cruel words, Barricade truly cared for the obnoxious cruel bugger.
And he missed Motorhead, the dorky rookie who cared far too much for what Barricade thought, though Motorhead had been getting better the last few thousands of years they had been together and had wormed his nerdy little way into Barricade's spark.
Those three were Barricade's brothers in arms; three of the few mechs he considered his battle buddies. Primus, he missed them.
Barricade wondered where they were. Somewhere in the universe, he was sure. Or... or the alternative, which he did not want to think about.
Ground Hog, Roller Force and Motorhead... his teammates, his compatriots, the only mechs he had ever allowed himself to get close to besides the aggravating one.
Barricade snorted. His spark-twin brother, the righteous prick. He shook the thoughts from his processor as he focused on the memories of his teammates while the woman drove far too fast.
Megatron had separated the RTP team ages ago, fearing that Barricade and his teammates would attempt an insurrection at his power. Barricade inwardly scowled as he thought back to those memories.
Proof of Megatron's insanity, even those many eons ago. I would never have gone against him, like we could! A simple patrol team could never have overtaken him, even with our popularity... Paranoid lunatic. He lost my loyalty when he separated us. Only duty kept me on his side... I hope they are still alive.
Rage filled his spark then. If Megatron or Starscream had offlined his team, and if he ever found out about it... Barricade vowed that he would rip Megatron's and Starscream's despicable sparks out of their bodies.
A sigh from the human caught his attention. Barricade stared at her, catching the beauteous grin upon her face, her hazel eyes sparkling in wonder and happiness, and the way her hands gripped the steering wheel as she sped around the track. She was joyful and loving every minute of the "race".
And it made him... just as happy?
These strange spark feelings are going to be the death of me! A jolt crossed his spark as he thought that, and surprised, he struggled to contain himself, lest he give himself inadvertently away to the human. That was strange. Barricade was confused. Why was his spark hurting?
He couldn't help but notice the human startle suddenly, rubbing her chest in confusion, her grin disappearing from her face.
Impossible! Barricade thought, surprised and a little afraid. That... couldn't mean what he thought it could, right? It was impossible... wasn't it?
Barricade watched her closely, and inwardly sighed in relief as she shook her head and returned to zipping around the tight corners. The grin returned to her face, and Barricade felt... what was it the humans called it? Butterflies? Yes, butterflies; he felt the flutters in his spark.
Primus. This woman had such an insane effect on him! He refused to consider the ramifications of what the jolt, and the human's rubbing of her chest, meant. Merely coincidence, surely.
Only a charge. Keep her safe. Feelings aren't important. Keep them out of this. Must keep her safe. Nothing else matters. Barricade repeated to himself, almost chant-like.
God, he loved the drive though, the way she sped, the way she let loose. He only wished they could drive fast on the open road, off into the sunset.
He chuckled to himself. Watching so many old Hollywood movies were turning him into a "romantic". How ludicrous. And yet he craved it.
He noticed the woman rubbing her eyes then, and intentionally started slowing down. Perhaps the slowing speed would catch her attention, and force her to go home and sleep. Barricade was aching for recharge himself.
Maeve had driven around the old track for hours, speeding as fast as she dared around the tight corners. Finally, as she rubbed her eyes and noticed the Saleen slowing down, most likely from her tiredness, she realized what time it was; only a few hours or so from sunrise.
She sighed, as she slowed even more and reluctantly left the old track.
The aging officer waved to her from the porch of his dilapidated home, and she waved back, smiling. She was surprised he was still awake at this hour.
Jack deserved a thanks for this; Maeve promised herself that she would take Jack and Janet out to dinner at some point. Maybe to the new Mexican restaurant that had just opened in town... she had heard good things about it, especially about their cheese enchiladas and green chili smothered burritos. She chuckled at how her stomach rumbled at the thought of food.
She drove home, paying close attention to her speed. The exhilaration of the track left the adrenaline still pumping through her veins, her blood calling out to her to speed. But she did not, no matter how much she wished to. The adrenaline was waning, and she struggled not to yawn as she drove in the dark night, the stars sparkling bright above her, the moon throwing its ample brightness on the road and dark landscape before her.
At that point, all she wanted to do was to go home and sleep. As it was, she still had to figure out how to get her personal car home from the precinct, and to go over her SWAT team's training. She sighed. She had a friend who could probably bring her car home in the morning, but the SWAT notes and analysis were going to take a while.
It was going to be a long night.
Finally, on the outskirts of Tranquility, she saw her home. Semi-rural, her closest neighbors were many acres away and the small unpainted adobe ranch home fit perfectly amongst the almost-desert landscape.
It was a beautiful home, but Maeve admitted to herself as she pulled in the driveway, it would always be missing something. Or rather, two people she would never be able to come home to again. Not after what had been done to them in Mission City. The aftermath of that loss had brought her to Tranquility.
She refused to think of them any further, shaking her head with a determined look on her face. So many years, it was time to forget, no need to torment herself with the memories...
She sighed as she grabbed her things and walked inside. She set the SWAT bag down in the pale tiled hall, and walked the short distance to her small bedroom. Walking to the oak dresser, she stripped to her tank top, and grabbed cotton pajama pants from the bottom drawer of the dresser. She pulled the pajama pants on quickly, and then briskly moved to the almost bare master bathroom. Maeve had never been one for interior decorating.
Staring into the mirror, she pulled out the bun, and grabbed her brush. She began brushing her dark auburn hair almost methodically as she stared at herself in the mirror, trying not to pull her hair too hard. Stress had had its own toll on her hair, she need not add any more loss.
As Maeve stared at herself in the mirror, she noticed the slight raccoon eyes forming, the paleness of her cheeks, the bruising on her arms and wrists from the earlier training, and the growing slimness of her cheeks and body as mounting stress affected her weight.
The three-inch white scar just beneath her collarbone on her left upper chest stood out prominently, as dark purple bruising surrounded it. That was one lingering injury she didn't want to think about, nor how the bruising had occurred. It wasn't from training practice, she knew. Something had triggered it.
No matter, Maeve deliberately put it out of her mind and ignored it all. She didn't want to think of how she was killing herself, or of old injuries that just wouldn't stop hurting her.
Walking back out to her sparse living room, she glanced about her small home, her heart aching. The pain was almost enough to skip her heart's beats.
While there were reminders of her life before Tranquility scattered about, the home always seemed too bare... too quiet. She had brought as much as she dared from Mission City, but it was never enough. Nothing could make this dismal place "home". Nothing could ever make this place better than what she had before. Nothing could replace... them.
Shaking her head deliberately, Maeve picked up her cordless phone, and called an acquaintance of hers from dispatch. The friend promised that her husband would pick up Maeve's car and drop it off to Maeve in the morning. Maeve thanked her friend, and hung up. She grabbed the SWAT bag from beside the couch and pulled out her notes from earlier.
She began to read them, trying in vain to ignore the desperation she felt in her body.
She glanced at the fridge in the kitchen, wondering if she should break out the bottle of wine. No, she needed to be sober. She couldn't drink before a shift, no matter how much she wanted to. Maeve shook her head, as her shoulder length red and brown hair, finally free of the bun, swished around her head.
She was determined not to let the past try to drown her again.
Better to focus on the present. Dwelling on the past won't change anything, she told herself firmly. I don't need the wine. I don't. I'm fine, and I can sleep tonight without it.
She grabbed her notes from the SWAT training, and rubbed her tired eyes as she sat wearily on her couch, going over what she had written from the practice tonight. Hall needed to work on his shooting, while Lancaster was doing better than expected. Rodriguez needed some help on the teamwork aspect, as his partner had been shot with Rodriguez's own sim-gun after they had been separated in the shoothouse.
The words from her notes began to blur as she struggled to stay awake and tried desperately to ignore what she wanted so much.
Going to be a long night. Maeve gave a longing look towards the fridge, and then finally looked over to her notes, sighing. The urge was becoming physically painful; the constant looks to the fridge interrupting her reading session. Cops had a notorious reputation for being alcoholics, and Maeve had wondered ever since the incident if she was becoming yet another cop with an alcohol problem. It was the night to quit that nonsense.
No need to drink. She didn't need it. She didn't.
Maeve struggled, her chest aching and her mouth dry, trying desperately to read the notes she had written only hours earlier. The ink of her notes was blending together so much that she couldn't make out any words.
Focus, Maeve. You don't need it. Work, dear. Focus on work. Focus on the team. Stop the bullshit. Words were becoming clearer, and then... another look towards the fridge and Maeve had to stop. The world was spinning, her body screaming in pain as she tried so hard to ignore what she wanted so much. She took a deep breath, and then resumed reading.
She panicked.
None of what she had written at team training made any sense.
Her notes had completely blended into a perfect mixture of ink and parchment.
Focus? Her only focus was on alcohol now, her body aching and in nearly excruciating mental pain with her need for it. Her hands shook as she grasped the parchment of her notes, and all she could think of was alcohol. All she could think of was drinking, the irresistible urge to get buzzed, to get drunk, to completely ignore what had happened to her. All she wanted was the blackout powers of alcohol; all she wanted was the power to drown her past, her sorrows... the memories. The memories especially.
She knew it was bad, she knew she shouldn't drink before a shift. But... Maeve couldn't stop herself. She had to rid herself of the past, before it completely overtook her and destroyed her.
Again.
Every night was like this, a constant fight. One she always lost, to the glory of alcohol and what it could do to make the memories and pain disappear.
Sighing, Maeve finally got up, throwing her notes onto the living room coffee table, the papers falling onto the white carpet from the forcefulness of her throw. Walking to her small southwestern style kitchen, she grabbed a clean wine glass out of the dishwasher. Almost robotically, she walked to the fridge, and grabbed the cold bottle of Chardonnay out of its hiding place in the veggies drawer. Maeve poured the Chardonnay into the wine glass until the glass was full, almost spilling the alcohol onto the granite countertop.
Maeve grimaced as she walked into the living room and sat down in the comfy armchair, clutching her glass of wine.
Her demons, her sins, were devastating her tonight. She couldn't hide from it, no matter how hard she had tried. Maeve was destroying herself, and she knew it.
Maeve rubbed her tired eyes again as she sipped her wine. She turned on the TV, to some mindless late night talk show, and drowned herself in her sorrows, for yet another night. Quick glass after quick glass.
She wondered, as she got drunk, how long it would be until the department figured out that she wasn't as fine as she had vehemently argued. She hadn't been "fine" for four years, and the last incident had just made it even more obvious. Not that Tranquility PD knew that, or her past, or anything about her really. They were quite oblivious to who she really was, whom she had lost, what her past was, and what was ultimately going to kill her.
Even her "friends" didn't know. God, she was so lonely. She acted like one person at TPD, and around fellow officers... and quite another when she was at "home". She had nothing, she was nothing, and she had no one. Maeve was truly lost, and no one even noticed. She hid it well enough.
Maeve was a good liar.
Outside in the cooling desert air, clueless to the anxiety and turmoil the woman inside the adobe home was going through, Barricade thought to himself of all the events of the day. He had very much enjoyed the driving, and the SWAT training was certainly worthwhile and informative.
All the files he had on the woman couldn't adequately describe how she truly was. Barricade couldn't help but admit, as he watched one last memory vid of the SWAT training, that he was anxious to see how the woman handled herself on a "bad" day.
Barricade was completely oblivious.
Cycling his vents, Barricade shut down the memory vid, and prepared his systems for a recharge. He settled himself down on his struts, allowing himself to fully relax. Better to contemplate everything tomorrow, he decided. Now was time for some recharge.
The woman inside the adobe home simply cried herself to sleep as she finished her multiple glasses of wine, wondering when she wouldn't have to be so "black and white", wondering when she could be herself without any repercussions, wondering when she didn't have to lie... wondering when she could finally grieve.