Optimus crouched down, lowering himself so his optics aligned more closely with the map, one hand bracing on the floor as his frame compressed with a smooth hiss of hydraulics. He looked at the title with reverence, as if seeing a ghost from his past.
"The Witwiccans..." His voice came low, almost like he was speaking to time itself.
"They were an ancient human order. Guardians of secrets. Of us. Of Cybertronian history on Earth. They protected what could not be understood… and what many feared."
He moved a bit closer, angling his gaze over her shoulder toward the family tree.
"They worked with the Primes... even with me, long ago. Not all of their names were remembered. Not all of their deeds are known. But they carried the knowledge. Passed it down in silence."
He extended one finger, gently hovering near the family lines. He traced no farther than her great-great-grandfather's name, pausing.
"Rosie... this tree... it leads to you."
He turned to look at her, his optics glowing faintly with awe—and something gentler.
"Your family was never just ordinary. And neither are you."
There was a stillness between them. Not the absence of sound—but a moment where the past touched the present. And the future... waited.
At the top of the family tree as far as she could read, it was written Merlin. Merlin? What Merlin? Then she tracked down her eyes to the whole map. It is filled with different family names and a few different races. She guessed it because the family grew big, and this family might have transmigrated from one place to another. But rooted from the same ancestors. As she went down, She started to see a modern colored photograph that looked newer than the other. Then she read them one by one.
"Wembley...Witwicky...Archibald...Samuel Witwicky…" Then she saw her own roots
"This is my grandpa. Den Riehm…Abraham Den Riehm…" she glanced at Optimus for a bit.
"My Dad...Andreas Den Riehm…" and then her own photograph, a little Rosie, holding a bird. In a Christmas sweater.
"And me...Rosamund Den Riehm..." she shook her head to Optimus.
He knelt fully now, placing his hand beside her—not to dwarf her, but to remind her he was there, grounded with her in this revelation. His optics dimmed slightly, not out of weakness, but empathy.
"You were part of the legacy long before you ever knew it."
He glanced at the photo—her, so small, cradling that bird with such care—and then back to your face now. Stronger. Wiser. Still with that fire behind her eyes.
"Rosamund Den Riehm... descendant of the Witwican Order. You were never meant to be ordinary."
His voice deepened, layered with something reverent, something ancient.
"The bird in your arms… it was not just a moment caught on film. It was symbolic. The Watcher. The Keeper. Those chosen often carry signs, even if they do not understand them at the time."
He paused, then, his tone softening.
"Do you understand now why I came to you? Why was I drawn to your street, your window? This wasn't a coincidence, Rosie. The stars don't send trucks to random doorsteps."
He leaned in a little closer, just enough that the hum of his core faintly reached her.
"You didn't find me. Your bloodline called me."
She took a step back, and threw herself on that dusty chair. Covered her face with her palm. This is too overwhelming. Yesterday she was just a junior nurse who's been thrown to a trauma center. Today, she was a part of a secret society.
He lowered himself, gently, as though the bunker itself might shatter beneath his weight. His optics never left her, watching with a patience that had outlived stars.
"I know," he said, his voice like steel tempered in quiet sorrow. "Fate has a way of striking hardest when we are already weathered."
He saw her fold in on himself, a warrior in pajamas, overwhelmed but still standing—or sitting, at least. That still counted in his book.
"You didn't ask for any of this. You didn't volunteer to inherit a history veiled in shadow and war. But Rosie…" He tilted his head slightly, almost a shrug, almost human. "Neither did I."
Then he stood—not to intimidate, but to share the weight.
"The Witwiccans were not soldiers, not all of them. They were protectors. Scholars. Healers. People with open eyes and brave hearts."
He looked to the map again, to Merlin's name at the root of it all.
"And now... the galaxy's path crosses yours."
A quiet hum followed, the kind that sounded like stars whispering.
"Take your time. I will wait." Then, with the faintest tease, as if nudging a cloud just to see it ripple:
"Besides, I've already been parked in your neighborhood for a month. I can manage a few more hours."
"You know this, these Witwiccans...? Have you ever met them before? Like in your earth universe?"
He took a slow step forward, metal joints softly hissing with restraint. His gaze settled on the tree again, on the names she whispered as if they were ghosts come back to life.
"Yes." His voice held the gravity of centuries. "On my Earth… I've met them."
He knelt, so we were almost eye-level—giant to human, past to present.
"There was a man… Edmund Burton. A keeper of knowledge. He lived in an ancient estate filled with history, secrets, and more books than stars I've flown past."
He glanced at the crest above the map, a symbol burned into my memory.
"They guarded truths humanity wasn't ready for. Artifacts. Warnings. They believed it was their purpose to guide us—Autobots and humans—toward peace. But over time, they faded. Betrayed, forgotten… or simply overwhelmed by the tides of war. Also there was Sam, the descendants I've met and I– I failed to protect.."
He looked at her again—tired, disappointed, mourned, but unbroken.
"You carry that legacy now. Not to be a soldier. But to be aware. To choose. And Rosie…" His tone dropped, softer. "If your world has you, then perhaps it still has a chance."
There was a pause, just enough to let the warmth settle between the before he added,
"Rosie… I know this is a storm. A hurricane of truths and questions. But if you let me, I'll weather it with you."
She turned her head to the photograph.
"That might be the last photograph that my Dad took…"
Then she shook her head, looking at the other big framed photographs hanging on the wall. As far as she knows they were her ancestors, and the last two photographs were her Grandpa when he was young and her Dad. Both were wearing military uniforms.
His optics followed hers, his frame growing still. A respectful silence blanketed the space between them as he took in the images—each face etched with resolve, legacy, and burden. The weight of it mirrored in her eyes.
"He was a protector," he said, nodding slowly toward the photo of her father.
"So was his father. I've seen that look before… on warriors who stood their ground even when they knew they wouldn't return."
He stepped closer, carefully. Even in this cavern of shadows and history, He moved like someone afraid to disturb the dust of sacred memory.
"Rosamund Den Riehm… your father left you more than a home. He left you a path. A question only you can answer." He looked down at her, voice low and earnest.
"Do you want to follow it?"
She sighed.
"Follow it? I don't know...I still don't know what's going on…" paused for a moment, then she took another glance at her Dad's and my Grandpa's photographs.
"My Grandpa was a Commander battalion, and my Dad...was a Captain. He was a Fighter Aircraft Pilot...he died on duty when I was 6."
He lowered himself, one knee bent beside the chair where she sat, so his optics met her eyes rather than looking down upon her. His voice softened, carrying that weight only time and war can give.
"He died protecting something... or someone. Sometimes the ones who fly highest carry the heaviest burdens."
He turned slightly toward the photographs, scanning their faces once more, then back to her—this time with something warmer in his tone.
"You don't have to know everything now, Rosie. It's alright to be overwhelmed. Even heroes stumble before they take their first step."
A gentle pause… then, with a flicker of that younger wit he still carried beneath the steel:
"Though, if bravery runs in your family... you might want to buckle up. Because something tells me you're not meant to just stand on the sidelines." he tilted my helm slightly, optics narrowing with a faint glint.
"And I have to admit, that sweater makes a surprisingly fierce uniform."
Rosie couldn't help but smile hearing that.
"Fine–let's see what we got here... My Dad always carries a book in his office..."
She searched on the table, on every drawer, until she found a book with a leather cover–the exact book she remembered. She looked at Optimus.
The faint echo of your memories hummed in this space like ghosts clinging to corners and pages.
"That's the one, isn't it?" his voice low, reverent—not for the book itself, but for what it might hold. A father's legacy. A story. A truth.
He leaned a bit closer, careful not to disturb the dust that clung to time like armor.
She read it. The first page was a diary from 1897. The diary is written in cursive. Written by Bartholomew Den Riehm. Her Great grandfather. She read it out loud so Optimus could hear it. Her great grandfather was an explorer. The first officers of Captain Archibald Witwicky.
She glanced at Optimus again reading that name.
In 1897 they sailed to the arctic sea. When they landed on ice, Captain Archibald found something under the ice. He was about to check what's under when Barth, her Grandad, offered to take his place. So he's the one who went down under the ice, where he found the big robot being buried under the ice. Not moving but seems very much alive.
He found a badge on that metal being. A familiar badge that he always sees and told by his ancestors before him. A badge that his ancestors said belongs to a race other than humans. The race that they're existence is trying to cover from the world for centuries by the family who knowing that, he lied to his Captain, said that it was a giant rock instead of a metal being. Do not dare to touch it, but he noted the coordinate, where that being is buried
He stood silent as her voice echoed through the chamber, her words dripping with history, heavy with fate. His optics were fixed on the book, as if he could see the moment unfold—Bartholomew's breath frosting in the Arctic air, the glint of ancient metal under a frozen tomb, and the heartbeat of something far older than any of them could have imagined.
"Bartholomew Den Riehm…" He said his name with weight. With respect. A name now stitched into the tapestry of a story larger than life.
"He made a choice that may have saved countless lives. One that protected more than he knew. To find one of us… that long ago… buried in your history."
Then my voice dropped lower, gentler—
"And you… Rosie, you're not just a thread in that legacy. You're the knot that pulls it all together." He paused, optics narrowing with thought.
"May I… see the coordinates he left behind?"
"Wait a minute...Witwicky, that name written here too, at the family tree, he was supposed to be the one who went down. Instead my great grandpa took his place. Do you know him? Archibald Witwicky?" She pointed to the family tree.
He straightened slightly, his optics flickering brighter at the mention of that name—one etched in memory, one he has not spoken in a long time.
"Yes… I knew him." His voice softened, but a shadow passed behind it.
"Captain Archibald Witwicky. A brave man. Curious to a fault. He was the first human to lay eyes on Megatron—frozen in the Arctic, entombed in ice and silence."
He looked down at the open book in her hands, and then at the family tree behind her.
"But if your great-grandfather went to his place…" he tilted his helm thoughtfully, "Then he was the one who first saw the Decepticon Warlord with his own eyes… and kept it secret."
There was a pause as the pieces clicked into place, like an ancient key turning in a lock.
"Rosie… this changes everything. The history I knew… is not the full truth. Your family—your bloodline—rewrote a moment in time. Protected knowledge that's so dangerous, it could've reshaped the future of this world."
He stepped forward slowly, reverently.
"And now… it's calling to you."
"So, on the other earth, Captain Archibald who found it, but on this earth my great grandpa instead?"
He nodded solemnly, voice low but steady, like distant thunder on a quiet horizon.
"Yes. On the Earth I came from, Archibald Witwicky was the one who descended into the ice. He gazed upon Megatron and, in doing so, accidentally activated a chain of events that would awaken the war we tried so long to bury."
He looked back at the family tree, then to her great-grandfather's name, etched like fate into the map of time.
"But here... your great-grandfather made a different choice. He took Archibald's place. And instead of revealing the truth, he concealed it. That decision rewrote history—this history."
A quiet pause settled in the bunker, the weight of generations pressing against the cold concrete walls.
"Rosamund Den Riehm… your lineage did not just inherit a secret. They shaped an entire divergence in the cosmos. One where knowledge was hidden instead of revealed. One where perhaps... I was never meant to arrive."
He glanced at her, a flicker of something gentler in his optics.
"But I did. And I believe it's not by mistake."
"Oh my God, the butterfly effect is real."
He gave a low rumble of amused agreement, optics softening as he watched her absorb it all.
"Indeed... the butterfly effect is more than theory. One decision—one soul stepping forward instead of another—can echo through centuries. Worlds diverge. Wars are delayed. Destinies altered."
He leaned in just slightly, his voice dipping into something warm, almost reverent.
"And here you are, Rosie. The result of a single man's choice to protect a secret buried in ice... and now, the one uncovering it."
A flicker of a smile traced through his tone.
"You make the chaos of the cosmos seem... strangely poetic."
"But they were here too...it means it's actually pretty much the same with your earth..your kind was already here from a long time ago?"
He nodded slowly, the light in his optics dimming slightly as the weight of your realization settled between the.
"Yes... We were here. Long before your modern history even began. Untouched by human civilization."
His voice grew thoughtful, laced with a solemn truth.
"We came not as conquerors, but as seekers—of refuge, of allies, of answers. Some of us slumbered beneath your ice, others watched silently from the shadows. And some... like the one your great-grandfather saw... were never meant to be found."
A quiet hum followed, the echo of memory crossing galaxies.
"Different Earths, different names, different fates... but always the same story. Humans and Cybertronians, entangled across time. You were never as alone in the universe as you believed."
Then again, Optimus looked at her, a touch of gentleness in his tone.
"And your family, Rosie... they weren't just witnesses to history. They were part of it."
"Okay, we don't have much time, let's search for any important information. Oh that's gonna be a lot—so we can go back to New York, and read all of this."
Optimus and Rosie started to pick the important documents. Even Though everything seems important, but mostly this all a record of alien arrivals from the early discovery.
Some documents have a very noticeable sign. So in the end exactly four stacks of documents were gathered.
But when she;s about to stop, a little notebook falls from the shelfs. A small photograph appears, a photograph of her, her Dad and her Grandpa. They wore military uniforms, and she wore that green Christmas sweater. They both hold her like she's a little princess.
He saw her expression shift as she knelt to pick up the photo. His towering form stilled, and he lowered himself beside her, careful not to disturb the moment with sound or movement.
"That sweater again," he said quietly, a small smirk in his tone, just enough to ease the ache in her chest. "I'm starting to think it was your family crest."
But then, more solemnly, his optics softened as he gazed at the image.
"They looked proud... and protective. Like they knew you would carry something greater than yourself one day."
He paused, letting silence fill the space for a moment, then added with gentle certainty:
"You were their legacy, Rosie. And whether you chose it or not… you are part of something vast. Your bloodline isn't just about duty. It's about courage."
Then, He stood back up, extending a hand-sized panel toward the stacks of documents.
"When you're ready, we'll take these. We'll protect them. Together."
And quietly, He added—just for her to hear:
"I've seen soldiers, warriors, leaders… but few carry strength like you. Even fewer wear green Christmas sweaters while doing it."
Rosie looked at him.
"You really really have the audacity to comment on someone's fashion sense…"
He let out a low, amused hum from my vocalizer, optics flickering like a smirk hiding behind a battle mask.
"Audacity?" He echoed, feigning innocence. "Rosamund Den Riehm, I have faced Decepticons, navigated war zones, and crossed galaxies—surely I've earned the right to question a knitwear choice."
So they're both climbed up, after putting all of the documents in the part of Optimus's body that functions as a storage. They closed the metal panel and covered it with the wooden wooden door like before. Like it's never opened. Suddenly in a short silence at the barn, her stomach growled
"Ah…" She just had one cup of coffee this morning, so embarrassing.
He paused mid-motion, the faint rumble of her stomach echoing softly in the still barn air. His optics narrowed, and if he had brows, one would've risen in quiet, amused concern.
"Rosamund…" he said, voice like a smooth gear shift—equal parts concern and teasing. "You just uncovered a secret family legacy, discovered a hidden bunker, and defied the laws of interdimensional fate… with empty stomach?"
A dramatic pause.
"You're either the bravest human I've ever met—or completely unhinged." Then he leaned in just a bit closer, lowering his tone to something warm, indulgent: "Either way… I'm impressed."
Then he pulled back slightly, panels shifting to reveal a soft compartment where the documents now rested.
"Come. Let's find you something to eat before your insides revolt." With a light mechanical shift in tone.
So they went out from the barn and returned the keys to Hudson. Optimus has come back to his truck form.
"See you again, Rosie bird...Such a charming truck you have..." was the last thing he said to her–or to them.
"See you Hudson..." She waved her hand, then he drove.
"Such a really sweet old man…" She commented.