She had slept Saturday away and was pretty sure that Sunday hadn't even existed.

Megatron sat across from her, his optics boring a hole into her soul. She blinked slowly, trying to ward off the exhaustion. She'd fought with herself all weekend over what the woman had said - how to let Megatron open up to her. She never let clients into her own life. Yes she would be open about herself, give them what she was willing to let them know. Present herself as an open person they could pry into. She had become a master craftsman of her words - able to say just enough to satiate the questions and yet not truly share anything at all.

Something today. . . The way his gaze was sharp and harbored an anger she had seen only a handful of times before. . . It told her she would have to open up more than even she was used to.

But she wasn't ready for that sort of desperate attempt yet.

"How long have you been here, Megatron?" She went with the easy and current. Maybe diving into his far past meant first wading in the more recent events.

Megatron sneered at her. "You do not know this already?" his voice taunted her with anger.

"I know what facts say, Megatron." she opened up the file in front of her to the page of his basic information. "But you Cybertronians live a long time. What is five years to you?"

"Your human mind wouldn't be able to comprehend it."

"I believe in a creator who transcends time."

"And do you understand that?"

She paused, chewing the inside of her bottom lip. "No."

He leaned back where he sat chains clacking as they pulled, watching her, a tight smirk forming on his face. She could see something working in his mind, the way his optics moved ever so, as if he were trying to sift it out of his thoughts.

"Go on," she nodded, her heart racing. "Ask."

He raised his head. "What do you think it is to me?"

Her tongue licked her teeth, thankful it wasn't a personal question. She pondered, thoughts colliding with each other, her tongue trying to pick out just the right string of words to get the right answer. Somehow she felt it needed to be right or he might shut the whole conversation down. She needed him to open up to her. "I think five years is a breadth to you. An amount that doesn't reflect the true reality of how long you live. But. . ." She bit back the words. That would go too far.

"But. What?" He leaned forward, his optics narrowing in on her. She imagined them magnifying her to him, studying the stray freckles on her face, the one small mole just beneath her chin, the indent in her scalp from when she'd fallen as a child.

"But this has been a lifetime to you, hasn't it? Stuck here, forced to live in your own mind, unable to escape your own thoughts or direct them to something. You have nowhere to divert your anger, and so this has not been five years, it has been your whole life over and over and over again."

"You think you understand me?" Anger rumbled through his words and her bones. "That three days has given you insight into who I am?"

"You asked me to answer," she tried to keep the sharpness at bay. "I answered with my opinion from my observation. Please," she wet her lips. "Tell me if I'm wrong."

He didn't speak.

She returned the silence. Her eyes studied over him again. He was tense, shielding him from whatever she was going to throw his way. Aurora mulled over the directions she could take their conversations. Finally, her mind settled on one way. "It's odd, isn't it?"

His expression shifted with flecks of confusion at her question, but his silence continued.

"There are no cameras in here. You'd think that they would want to keep an eye on you at all times." Her eyes wandered the room, searching for any cameras to negate what she'd said. "I noticed that my first day here. Why I felt comfortable saving you from that doom box. You would think that if they wanted information they simply would need to listen to the voice recordings or watch the footage. Instead they rely solely on me to be willing to pass on to them what you have opened to me. Odd they would do that."

"Hmph," his optics wandered the room, a solemn look falling over his face. "It was at Optimus' request. Or deal for creating my chains." his words were careful, quiet, as if he didn't really want her to hear him speaking.

"Why?"

"Why do you think I would know?" he snapped.

She straightened her shoulders in lieu of rearing back at the boom in his voice. "Maybe it was for him, too. When he visited, your conversations would be in secret."

A rumble of laughter rolled from Megatron's chest. "Optimus has not visited me. And he won't. Besides, we would speak in Cybertronian if he wished to keep our conversations private."

"Right," the thought slipped from her lips. She glanced at Megatron, realizing he'd heard her. "I just. . . I guess I never thought of you as speaking another language." She met his optics with her own eyes, her gaze softening. "You probably can speak whatever language you want. But your own language, would it be Cybertronian? Were there dialects to it? Or was it all just one?"

"There were hundreds." She watched his expression change as it had before when he'd gone somewhere else. This is where she wanted him. Drifted into his own mind, unaware that he was divulging secrets. "Ancient Cybertronian had been lost before I was created. I spoke in the dialect of Kaon - not dissimilar to Iacon's dialect. Mine used less to say more, that is what made those of us from Kaon so different from Iacon. We did not rely on our words to share all that we needed to say. Then there was the language of the Primes - one that is harbored by only a Prime. I often wondered how lonely it must have been for Optimus to speak a language he could share with no one." she expected there to be a smile at that statement. Instead he looked sad, as if he felt for his lifelong nemesis.

"You mentioned Kaon. Was that your home on Cybertron?"

"I had no home on Cybertron. Kaon is where I learned to fight. It was the home of those who followed me. It is where we stood our ground in the midst of war. But it was not my home."

She desperately wanted to dig deeper into this, her hand scribbling the notes as quickly as she could. A deep part of her stated truth, that he could snap from his mind at any moment, her momentum lost. She needed to allow these moments to be as close to the edge as possible without going over it. If language is what got him in that place, it's where she needed to stay. "Did you learn Cybertronian or was it something ingrained in you from birth?"

"It is natural. As the sun knows to rise, we knew to speak. Dialects came from how one chose to speak. I chose Kaon as my dialect, I chose those people to be my people. I chose to speak only as though I were from Iacon only when it suited me well." a darkness fell over his face and her heart thrummed in her chest. He was going to snap out of his trance. "But even that failed me. As they all failed our home."

Aurora let out a tense breath. "I'm sorry you were failed."

The room became still. She licked her lips, watching him. He was gone from their place, somewhere far away. His optics were dim, the red a light haze compared to its normal ferocity. He was living in a memory and she wanted so badly to be able to walk into his mind and watch it for herself. To even understand a fraction of what he lived through could help her in her quest.

She closed the file and stuffed it quietly into her bag. Today was done. She'd let him live in his memories for now, maybe it was where he needed to be. Maybe his trances were his own minds way of trying to cry out for help. To bring back the mech he had once been before the war began. She didn't know. She could only go off what she did. Which was that his trust would not be gained by scrutinizing his mind in these times. She saw his reaction the last time, he would not trust her if she continued to force him to places he didn't want to be yet.

Even her docile cat became ferocious when cornered. Standing, she straightened her shirt and descended quietly, her eyes flickering to him ever so often to see if he had awakened from the stupor.

At the door she knocked, giving him one last glance. He was gone and she wondered for how long. The door opened and she stepped through into the hallway, greeted by two guards who dared not look inside, as if it were a furnace that would burn them alive if they got too close.

Clutching her bag close to her chest again, she listened to the screech of the door behind her, the guards turning the lock until it clicked in place. Aurora smiled to herself. She'd found a way in. It was small and it would take an insurmountable amount of time to find how she could use these moments to let him cave in to her questions. But if she could dig deeper each time, read his body, know when he was done. . . She could find ways to heal him.

That was if he wanted to be healed.

A part of her laughed at that thought. Warlords didn't want to be healed. But the other part remembered that they broke because they, too, were broken. Maybe if she dug far enough he would begin to open up willingly when not in such a trance. If this truly was his subconscious crying out for mercy, it would only be a matter of time.

Pulling her lanyard off, Aurora pushed open Deagon's office door. He was nowhere to be seen, probably doing rounds through the prison halls. She settled the lanyard onto his desk, her eyes noticing a paper with her image on it. Her file that Deagon had probably received when she'd accepted the position. She desperately wanted to read through it, see what the government had to say about her.

Biting back the curiosity, she stood up, her eyes not leaving the file. It was thin, unlike Megatrons. Which was a good sign. She leaned over, wanting to read the first few sentences. It wouldn't hurt anyone if she did, would it?

Footsteps echoed from behind the door and she shot up, her lips pursing. There was no need to get into trouble today.

Turning, she squealed when her body slammed into another. Backing up she noticed Deagon, standing with an indignant expression. "I was just dropping off my lanyard." Her voice was noticeably higher, caught in an act of defiance.

"It's not illegal for you to read your own file." he walked around her, his hand closing the manilla folder. "But it would be in your best interest to not be found peering over my desk trying to read things again." His eyes narrowed at her. "Did you find out anything else today?"

"Surprisingly," she heaved her bag back up closer to her chest. "Yes. Nothing of supreme importance, but I'm getting somewhere."

"Four days," he sat down in his chair, the wheels sliding back a little from his force. "That's a near record. Dr. Yark has you beat by one day."

Her brows knitted close together. A question hung on her tongue, but she didn't know if it would be a breach of privacy to ask it.

"He left for. . . Personal reasons." Deagon answered her question. "That's all you need to know. Now." he stood up and came back around his desk, leaning against the top of it. His arms crossed and she couldn't help but notice that today his shirt seemed a little more fitted, his muscles shaping through the fabric. "About our chat from a few days ago. I know you don't want to share what he has to say, some honorary breach of privacy." he huffed, his eyes rolling. She hated how he couldn't hide his simple expressions. Though she was sure it was some psychological ploy on his part. "I'd like to talk about the importance of you sharing those things with me."

"I know the importance, Deagon." she kept her own eyes from rolling. "You are the one who doesn't seem to understand the importance of Megatron trusting me. If he thinks I'm going to spill his secrets to others he woefully doesn't trust, he will never share anything with me."

"I get that. I really do. What you don't get is how much our country would appreciate having these secrets."

"I think I can understand their want for them. Look," she set her bag onto one of the leather chairs she stood near. "Let's make a deal. I won't share information with you until I'm finished. When I have worked with Megatron, gotten all I could, helped him how I can, I will give you every single bit of information I have written in my files. You will know everything and by then, God willing, he won't care who knows."

Deagon shifted, one foot crossing over the other. His eyes narrowed in on her, studying her. "Our country may not want to wait that long."

"I'm offering you what you want. Take it or leave it."

"What if I said that we were taking his files in the end anyway."

"I expected as much."

"Then that's not much of a deal."

Aurora sighed. "Then I'll work on getting him to accept me sharing it sooner."

"Or you can do as you're told and give them to me when I ask. You may not like it, Dr. Clark, but I'm your superior."

His words made a shiver run up her spine.

"I run this place. My soldiers know that when I say something, they have to listen. It's only a matter of time you learn that reality too."

Aurora lifted her back up again when he eyed it. "I work for the government. You are not an entity, but a part of it. And I am not one of your soldiers." Her eyes shifted to a corner of the room, finding a small speck of paint particularly interesting. "I've seen what war can do to a person."

"The part of it that's over you." he pushed off the desk, ignoring her last statement and walked closer.

Her heart jumped over beats as his shadow fell over her. "I want word from who's over you." She felt her courage come back, anger fueling her words.

That stopped him dead in his tracks. "What?"

"Whoever's over you, because someone is. They're the one with the power you so desperately lack and think you have. Get their word that I have to give you everything before the end and I will give it over to you without hesitation. Weekly if I have to."

He stammered, then, "I can get his word tomorrow."

"I want it written. I want it on paper that you and I both have to sign and send in to him. I want it to be his signature sent back. I will accept whatever he says."

Darkness swam in his eyes and it scared her, even more so than Megatron's own glare. At least the giant mech was chained down. One of his eyebrows twitched, but he leaned back. "Fine." was all he could muster in a tone that resounded with anger. "I'll have a document written up tomorrow for us both to sign. Will that make you happy?"

Her lips pursed, trying to bite back the words. "I'm beginning to think it wasn't Megatron that made the others leave." Her eyes widened, realizing that her efforts had failed.

Deagon shoved past her, knocking her backwards. She stabilized herself and then jumped at the terrifying sound of the door slamming shut. Turning, Deagon stood with his hand pressed firmly to the door, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. "You think you're invincible because your country needs you. You think you've seen the worst of what I can show." a chuckle rose from the back of his throat as he turned.

Aurora backed up until her knees hit the back of his desk. "I'm sorry, Deagon, that was uncalled for." her voice stammered.

He stalked over to her and wood squealed against cement as she shoved herself into the desk. His hand clutched around her chin, fingers digging into her jaw and cheeks. "I could make you give me those files," he glanced at her bag. "I could do things to you that would make you need your own shrink. You don't seem to really understand the power that I have here, Aurora. This prison is under the governments rule but because of what it houses, it's shadowed from the world. There are things here I can get away with that no citizen nor government official would ever know happened." he sucked in a deep breath, exhaling it sharply over her face. She scowled at the smell. "But I'm playing it cordially out of respect for our country. Because I want what's best for America. But if you continue to step out of line, I won't hesitate to show you who really owns this show."

His grip released and she pulled her head away from his hand. Tears blurred her vision and she blinked them away until everything was clearer.

"I will send out the form tomorrow." he spat. "But if you try to come up with one more excuse, I won't hesitate to take further measures."

Her eyes diverted to the floor, her mouth suddenly dry.

"Was that clear enough for you?"

Her head shook as she rapidly shook it. "I understand. Thank you."

His shadow moved out of her way and she shoved herself off the desk, nearly running for the door. She couldn't wait to get back into her car and let the tears run free. She didn't know if she could do this any longer. Not if she had to answer to Deagon. She wondered how long he was able to hide it from the others. Maybe it was her nature to talk back to those she didn't like that pushed him into his anger so fast. Or maybe it was because he was getting lashed by his own higher ups that no information was to be had about Megatron. Or possibly, he was an angry man who couldn't hide his emotions.

Her car door slammed shut beside her as she slipped inside. Her hands gripped the wheel until her knuckles became white. Sobs poured out of her chest, spilling until she could taste their saltiness in her mouth. She had no one to go home to. No one to run to in this time. Her parents would be asleep at this hour. She wasn't anywhere near her brother to be able to talk to him. Her coworkers at her old job would also be asleep. She was alone. Tucked in a town of few people. Working in a prison tucked so far into a forest it would take days of hiking for anyone to find it. She was isolated.

Her hands slammed against the wheel, a scream erupting from her chest. Breaths shook her whole body, trying to calm her down, tell her that she was okay now and would be okay. All she had to do was evade him.

She glanced up, staring out at the gray walls of the parking garage. She could evade him. She could, couldn't she?

Her lips quivered. She had to get her lanyard from him every day and give it back at the end. There was no evading him. She had to sign a document with him, had to converse with him. And if it went through she would have to share her updates with him about Megatron.

She blinked, her eyelashes soaked in tears, pushing more down her face in a steady stream. She had just had a breakthrough. She couldn't not go in. She had to see if her idea would work - if she could get the information from Megatron. Yet when she did she would have to divulge it to a man who, for all she knew, would keep it to himself.

But she wasn't in too deep yet. She'd only seen him four days. She could make the excuse that he had terrified her. Other psychologists had left in less. Those she surmised hadn't had any breakthroughs as soon as her, if at all.

Her head leaned against the headrest, her chest finally finding slow deep breaths. Dr. Yark had had a breakthrough sooner than her. Her mind thrummed. If he'd had one sooner than her. . . Why hadn't she read that in the notes? What breakthrough did he have? Had his breakthrough been Megatron's anger to his past? Or was it something more, something better? Something that could help her? And if he'd had a breakthrough, why had he left? What personal reason was so important as to walk away from this?

The questions whirlpooled in her mind until she felt a headache forming. Groaning, she lifted her head and started her car. Holding in a deep breath, she began the drive out of the garage.

Wednesday would be a new day. She would hold her tongue in front of Deagon. If she could do that she could keep his wrath at bay. She was there to be Megatron's psychologist, not create rifts with anyone. Deagon was only but a formality that she could deal with. She would do it for her country and a part of her felt too that she was doing it for her reputation. It wasn't everyday a psychologist could put down that they changed the heart of a warlord.

The moon shone through her window as her car erupted from the tunnel. She could do this. She would do this. If she wouldn't let a gigantic warlord terrify her, she wouldn't let a warden either.