And Eyes 8
And Eyes That I Might See
Chapter 8
Series: Transformers 2007
Ratings/Warnings: T for safety, but nothing worse than mild language.
Characters/Pairings for this chapter: Amanda (OC), Bluestreak, Sunstreaker
Summary: The Autobots get cornered in a canyon after a Decepticon attack, along with a handful of humans. Unfortunately, Amanda is blind, making things a little harder for her. How's a girl to manage when she can't even see the giant robot aliens who rescued her?
Many thanks to my beta, mmouse15!
Past Chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
At FFnet
oOoOoOo
“What the slag are you doing?” asked a voice flatly, an abrupt tenor that was, pardon the pun, alien to her. “You look ridiculous.”
“Uh…” said Bluestreak.
“Jesus Christ not again,” muttered Amanda.
oOo
Amanda flinched, startled by the unexpected (and unexpectedly rude) voice, then flinched again as Bluestreak sat up, metal scraping against metal and the huge bulk of him-she just couldn’t get over how big they were-brushing past her.
“I was helping Amanda get an idea of how big I am,” Bluestreak said cheerfully. “Because she’s blind. ’Manda, this is Sunstreaker.”
“Hello,” Amanda said, only slightly shaky, trying to subtly feel around for Bluestreak so she had something solid to lean against, figuratively speaking. The Autobot was the one person she’d met so far that she’d liked unreservedly.
…Well… There was Sam and Sarah, even Phenomena. Jerry had been downright charming, Mirage had been trying to be nice, even after all that initial confusion. The only thing she had against Optimus Prime was her lingering embarrassment about how she’d acted. Bumblebee had been great, as had Mikaela, and it wasn’t their fault, or Sam’s, that the three of them were close almost to the point of exclusion. Ratchet had just been slightly grumpy, even if that made him mildly horrifying, and Ironhide hadn’t even really interacted with her, although he'd been mildly horrifying as well, but not in a really bad way…
Okay, mostly it was just the first Autobot she had met. Sideswipe.
“Why do you need to lay down so the organic can tell what size you are? That’s ridiculous. And you’re going to get disgusting carbon constructs lodged in your joints doing that. Don’t come to me when you need someone to work them out.”
There was a puzzled silence.
“Uh, Sunstreaker?” Bluestreak said, hesitantly. “‘Blind’ means not being able to see.”
“…Oh.”
Amanda snorted with slightly bitter amusement. It was regretfully loud in the surprising and sudden silence that had fallen.
“Really,” Bluestreak said, suddenly, as if the silence was bothering him so much he needed to break it. “You should start researching this sort of stuff. Looking up the definition of a word when you don’t know what it means… It’s a good idea, usually.” He sounded reproachful, and maybe still slightly nervous. “Because-Well, what were you going to come up for as a definition for ‘blind’?”
“Yeah,” added Amanda.
There was a pointed lack of any reply.
“So, Sunstreaker, is there any reason you're out there? Not that it's not great to see you! Because it is, really, but it's kind of unexpected since you've kind of been avoiding everyone this whole time and it's been sort of strange but more normal for you, I guess. So I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised except for now because you've found me, right? So I guess you were looking for me, because you didn't just drive off again or anything and-”
“You're due for patrol. And Optimus told me to make sure the human you were watching gets back safe.” Amanda started at that-he had to mean her!-but he didn't seem to think that that was even vaguely out of the ordinary. “He must mean that thing, then.”
“Hey!” Amanda was nettled, growing very much tired of the constant little jabs very quickly. “I am not a thing!”
“Don't take it too seriously,” said Bluestreak, a little nervously. “He doesn't really mean it. I think. I mean, it's kind of just the way Sunstreaker is...”
“That's no excuse,” muttered the woman darkly.
“I really do need to go, then,” he continued, suddenly. “Because I'm supposed to go patrol, and that's important, especially now, with us barricaded in by the Decepticons-hey, isn't one of them named Barricade? That seems kind of appropriate, I guess, since they've got us trapped in here and the humans are kind of making things more difficult because it means we're more vulnerable-not that I'm not happy to meet you, Amanda! It's really great, you seem really nice and this is the first time I've really gotten to meet a person, I mean, a human, and you seem really nice and I was kind of worried at first-”
Sunstreaker snorted again. “Why?”
“Why? Well, I mean, you hear stories and then there were all the warnings, and I didn't want people to be really scared, because-Because, right? That would be awful, and it would be really lonely if everyone here was too scared to talk to me or even hated me-”
“You worry too much.”
“...It's a good thing to worry about,” Bluestreak said, simply, soundly a little sad. He brightened again, suddenly, and continued. “But I do need to go! Bye, Amanda, I promise I'll see you again soon, Sunstreaker, would you take Amanda back to the base? I wouldn't ask you to 'cause I know you-”
“You're late. Go.”
“Thank you!” said Bluestreak, sounding pleased and thankful. There were the noises of transformation-it was amazing, how quickly she'd gotten used to that-and then the always-surprising squeal of tires on dirt, a car accelerating away. That still made her nervous, not because of who and what Bluestreak was, but because cars had always put her a bit on edge. They were so loud, deafening and the build-up-the sheer mass of them. And she could never see how close they were, just guess based on the sounds of their engines, their tires. No, she'd never been a fan of cars...
Amanda realized, with more than a certain measure of trepidation, that Sunstreaker had never actually promised to bring her back. And he certainly didn't like humans. He didn't even seem to like Bluestreak, and he was one of the nicest people she knew, whether or not he was a transforming car. It had made her feel like she'd made a difference when he'd told her-and Sunstreaker, she supposed-how happy he was that he'd gotten to know her, and things had gone well. It filled her with a warm glow, a fuzzy, happy feeling.
Sunstreaker did not do that. No, not at all.
Amanda stood with a sigh, feeling achy and tired. Her day was definitely starting to wear on her. It seemed like it had been endless... Which made a certain amount of sense.
It was time to gather up her stuff. There was a purse-it was amazing, the things you managed to keep a hold of just because it had become entirely automatic, and she was definitely sold on the benefits of keeping your bag slung over both shoulders, now-and her shoes. She'd have put those on, now that she thought of it, even if she wasn't heading back. It had been nice to squinch her toes through the dirt-more like cool, dry dust, really-but it was getting really cold.
She stood and hesitated just momentarily, not sure if she needed to say something, or what to say if she did.
“What are you doing?” said Sunstreaker, flatly.
“Getting ready to go...?”
“Huh. If you want to stay out here longer, you can.”
“Oh! Um, thank you... If it's a bother, it's fine, I'm happy to go back now-”
“It's not like I want to go rushing back to those idiots in camp.”
“...Um.”
There was an awkward silence. Amanda sat back down.
“Bluestreak's an idiot,” Sunstreaker said at last.
The woman stiffened again. “Excuse me?” she said, voice waspish and angry. “He's a wonderful person, and I'm honored that I had the chance to meet him-”
“He worries about stupid things,” Sunstreaker said, and Amanda paused, face going slack with surprise. She didn't know what his tone meant, it was confusing... “Idiot.”
“I don't see how worrying about people liking you is stupid,” Amanda said, quietly. “I'd feel bad if I thought that there was a chance that everyone on Earth would hate me if they saw me.”
Sunstreaker made a noise that sounded almost like a sigh, surprising Amanda again, but she let it go.
“It shouldn't matter. If someone can't see something like that, then they're stupid, so their opinion doesn't matter.”
“I guess,” she replied, sounding dubious. “...It would still kind of hurt. Wouldn't you wonder if it was you instead of them, after a while?”
The silence that followed her comment felt sharper, more pained, for some reason she couldn't name. There were the sounds of Sunstreaker shifting, and nothing more. Amanda wished she could see. At least that way she could attempt to understand alien robot body-language. They seemed to talk a lot like humans, so maybe that would translate as well... No, that seemed unlikely...
“No,” said Sunstreaker suddenly.
“Huh?” said Amanda, startled. “No what?”
“You don't start to think it's you.”
“Oh!” It made sense-she'd believe that nobody really liked Sunstreaker. She also didn't believe him when he said it didn't start to hurt after a while. “...Maybe it's just me, then. How do you know Bluestreak?”
“He's part of my team. It was just the three of us: me, Bluestreak and my brother. For... millennia.”
“That sounds...
“It sounds lonely. Wait-brother? How does that work?”
“Our sparks are tied. Our-hearts, our souls, whatever. Your stupid human language is useless.”
“I like English, and it works well for me. That must be-hard, I guess. But it sounds... nice? I don't know.”
“Sides is an idiot. And I would do anything for him.”
Amanda was inclined to believe him. “Is anyone not an idiot to you? And who's this 'Sides' person? I don't think I've met him...”
“You have. It's short for Sideswipe.”
“...Sideswipe. You're his brother.”
“Yeah.”
“He-argh! He's the one who picked me up! I was... I was-it was horrifying, I've never been so scared in my life, I-I... It's inhuman! He was...”
“Watch it.”
“He picked me up when I had just woken up. I couldn't see, and he was 'proving' that the Autobots were real-of course I didn't believe it when Sam just told me! I can't see-and I was scared, alone, confused, this has never happened to me before and-and I'm vulnerable, I hate saying that, but I really can't see, I didn't know anything, I couldn't even see what kind of place I was in, all I knew was that it echoed strangely but I'd gotten hit on the head, I didn't know what it had messed up-I was so scared...” She was almost crying, she realized, reliving the experience.
“...I'm sorry.” The apology almost sounded as if it should be a threat. “...I'm not my brother.”
Amanda didn't say anything for a slow, cold minute. “What... What do you mean by that?” she asked. Her voice cracked on the first word, her throat choked with tears and stress, and she cleared her throat before trying again.
“Sideswipe says that a lot. He's the nice one of us.”
“...I'd disagree,” Amanda said softly. “You've been... Nice.”
“Don't lie,” Sunstreaker said, sharply.
“No! You have! You're talking to me. And you've told me the truth-at least, I think you have. You didn't have to... help calm me down. You've answered my questions. You-you even stayed out here with me! I was all ready to go back to the main group, no questions asked. You've been rude, too, but you've been nice. And with Bluestreak-he's your friend too, isn't he?”
“...Yeah.” Again, the confession sounded like it needed to be dragged out of him by the teeth.
“And you haven't scared me the way Sideswipe did.”
“...I don't know what the slag he was thinking then,” the mech confessed. “We're not the same person. I'm not my brother. Sides says that a lot. He's the one who likes people. I don't understand it! But everyone thinks that he's going to get violent too, because I do.” There was a smug satisfaction to the words, not at the reaction other Autobots had to Sideswipe, but at the violence. Which was kind of worrying. Amanda's stomach knotted with slight fear, and she forced herself to make a conscious decision to not be afraid of him.
“You... Don't really seem to like people either,” she said.
“I don't like anyone.”
“You like Bluestreak.” A thoughtful pause. “And Sideswipe.”
There wasn't any answer.
“Do... Do you hate me?”
“...Not yet.”
oOo
It was bitterly cold, and Amanda was shivering.
“We're going back,” announced Sunstreaker suddenly. “You're malfunctioning or something.”
“It's just a little c-cold,” the woman managed, through chattering teeth. “Nothing to really worry about.”
“You humans glitch with no reason all the time,” Sunstreaker growled. “I don't need to know how this will slag you up. Get in.”
“Where... Where are you?” Amanda asked. She'd lost track of his position-stupid her. She needed to pay better attention! And she hated asking. She'd decided not to be afraid of Sunstreaker, but didn't mean she liked him-although she thought, maybe, that she might. She still didn't want to seem vulnerable in front of him.
“Over here,” he said.
“Am I getting closer?”
“A little to your right. Further.”
Amanda was grateful for the way he treated it. No teasing, no condescension, no special notice at all. After the day she'd had, it was a real breath of fresh air-and one she'd appreciated. She'd had a few too many of the non-metaphorical version of those over the course of the day. It was strange, to have the very air smell different. She was a city person at heart, no question.
It was much warmer inside of him; just getting out of the wind made a huge difference. He'd turned on his heater, too, and she was almost positive that that was only for her benefit. The inside smelled alien and metallic, and the thick air seemed to close in around her, but in a good way.
She was reminded of where she was when the seat belt moved into her hand when her questing fingers reached for it.
...That was still kind of creepy. She was inside him. All the Transformers seemed to think it was normal and natural, but it just seemed wrong to her...
“What do you look like?” she asked, at last.
“I'm the best-looking,” came the prompt-and vain-answer. She stifled an inappropriate giggle.
“Really? I... Can't tell.”
There was an amused silence. And Amanda was almost sure-almost positive-when Sunstreaker spoke up again that he was joking. “That's too bad. You're missing out.”
There was another period of quiet, but it felt easy, comfortable. They jolted their way over the rocks. It seemed like it was taking a while, but that made a certain amount of sense-it wasn't like a car could move as the crow flies, in these mountains.
The sudden boom of an explosion-accompanied by a flare of light, Amanda guessed, but she didn't know-shocked her out of it.
“Out,” demanded Sunstreaker, and Amanda obeyed, with alacrity. And then he was gone, and she was sitting on the rough scree of a mountainside, listening to guns and the scrape and squeal of metal. There was screaming, human and Autobot. And Decepticon? That had to be it.
They were scary like this. They hadn't been, earlier. Megatron. She could fear that name, now. But he was dead, right? So it wouldn't be him.
That wasn't much comfort. It could be anyone else.
The sudden stomping of footsteps, approaching rapidly and then overhead, made her scream. She didn't know-
--End Chapter 8--
Chapter 8
Series: Transformers 2007
Ratings/Warnings: T for safety, but nothing worse than mild language.
Characters/Pairings for this chapter: Amanda (OC), Bluestreak, Sunstreaker
Summary: The Autobots get cornered in a canyon after a Decepticon attack, along with a handful of humans. Unfortunately, Amanda is blind, making things a little harder for her. How's a girl to manage when she can't even see the giant robot aliens who rescued her?
Many thanks to my beta, mmouse15!
Past Chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
At FFnet
oOoOoOo
“What the slag are you doing?” asked a voice flatly, an abrupt tenor that was, pardon the pun, alien to her. “You look ridiculous.”
“Uh…” said Bluestreak.
“Jesus Christ not again,” muttered Amanda.
oOo
Amanda flinched, startled by the unexpected (and unexpectedly rude) voice, then flinched again as Bluestreak sat up, metal scraping against metal and the huge bulk of him-she just couldn’t get over how big they were-brushing past her.
“I was helping Amanda get an idea of how big I am,” Bluestreak said cheerfully. “Because she’s blind. ’Manda, this is Sunstreaker.”
“Hello,” Amanda said, only slightly shaky, trying to subtly feel around for Bluestreak so she had something solid to lean against, figuratively speaking. The Autobot was the one person she’d met so far that she’d liked unreservedly.
…Well… There was Sam and Sarah, even Phenomena. Jerry had been downright charming, Mirage had been trying to be nice, even after all that initial confusion. The only thing she had against Optimus Prime was her lingering embarrassment about how she’d acted. Bumblebee had been great, as had Mikaela, and it wasn’t their fault, or Sam’s, that the three of them were close almost to the point of exclusion. Ratchet had just been slightly grumpy, even if that made him mildly horrifying, and Ironhide hadn’t even really interacted with her, although he'd been mildly horrifying as well, but not in a really bad way…
Okay, mostly it was just the first Autobot she had met. Sideswipe.
“Why do you need to lay down so the organic can tell what size you are? That’s ridiculous. And you’re going to get disgusting carbon constructs lodged in your joints doing that. Don’t come to me when you need someone to work them out.”
There was a puzzled silence.
“Uh, Sunstreaker?” Bluestreak said, hesitantly. “‘Blind’ means not being able to see.”
“…Oh.”
Amanda snorted with slightly bitter amusement. It was regretfully loud in the surprising and sudden silence that had fallen.
“Really,” Bluestreak said, suddenly, as if the silence was bothering him so much he needed to break it. “You should start researching this sort of stuff. Looking up the definition of a word when you don’t know what it means… It’s a good idea, usually.” He sounded reproachful, and maybe still slightly nervous. “Because-Well, what were you going to come up for as a definition for ‘blind’?”
“Yeah,” added Amanda.
There was a pointed lack of any reply.
“So, Sunstreaker, is there any reason you're out there? Not that it's not great to see you! Because it is, really, but it's kind of unexpected since you've kind of been avoiding everyone this whole time and it's been sort of strange but more normal for you, I guess. So I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised except for now because you've found me, right? So I guess you were looking for me, because you didn't just drive off again or anything and-”
“You're due for patrol. And Optimus told me to make sure the human you were watching gets back safe.” Amanda started at that-he had to mean her!-but he didn't seem to think that that was even vaguely out of the ordinary. “He must mean that thing, then.”
“Hey!” Amanda was nettled, growing very much tired of the constant little jabs very quickly. “I am not a thing!”
“Don't take it too seriously,” said Bluestreak, a little nervously. “He doesn't really mean it. I think. I mean, it's kind of just the way Sunstreaker is...”
“That's no excuse,” muttered the woman darkly.
“I really do need to go, then,” he continued, suddenly. “Because I'm supposed to go patrol, and that's important, especially now, with us barricaded in by the Decepticons-hey, isn't one of them named Barricade? That seems kind of appropriate, I guess, since they've got us trapped in here and the humans are kind of making things more difficult because it means we're more vulnerable-not that I'm not happy to meet you, Amanda! It's really great, you seem really nice and this is the first time I've really gotten to meet a person, I mean, a human, and you seem really nice and I was kind of worried at first-”
Sunstreaker snorted again. “Why?”
“Why? Well, I mean, you hear stories and then there were all the warnings, and I didn't want people to be really scared, because-Because, right? That would be awful, and it would be really lonely if everyone here was too scared to talk to me or even hated me-”
“You worry too much.”
“...It's a good thing to worry about,” Bluestreak said, simply, soundly a little sad. He brightened again, suddenly, and continued. “But I do need to go! Bye, Amanda, I promise I'll see you again soon, Sunstreaker, would you take Amanda back to the base? I wouldn't ask you to 'cause I know you-”
“You're late. Go.”
“Thank you!” said Bluestreak, sounding pleased and thankful. There were the noises of transformation-it was amazing, how quickly she'd gotten used to that-and then the always-surprising squeal of tires on dirt, a car accelerating away. That still made her nervous, not because of who and what Bluestreak was, but because cars had always put her a bit on edge. They were so loud, deafening and the build-up-the sheer mass of them. And she could never see how close they were, just guess based on the sounds of their engines, their tires. No, she'd never been a fan of cars...
Amanda realized, with more than a certain measure of trepidation, that Sunstreaker had never actually promised to bring her back. And he certainly didn't like humans. He didn't even seem to like Bluestreak, and he was one of the nicest people she knew, whether or not he was a transforming car. It had made her feel like she'd made a difference when he'd told her-and Sunstreaker, she supposed-how happy he was that he'd gotten to know her, and things had gone well. It filled her with a warm glow, a fuzzy, happy feeling.
Sunstreaker did not do that. No, not at all.
Amanda stood with a sigh, feeling achy and tired. Her day was definitely starting to wear on her. It seemed like it had been endless... Which made a certain amount of sense.
It was time to gather up her stuff. There was a purse-it was amazing, the things you managed to keep a hold of just because it had become entirely automatic, and she was definitely sold on the benefits of keeping your bag slung over both shoulders, now-and her shoes. She'd have put those on, now that she thought of it, even if she wasn't heading back. It had been nice to squinch her toes through the dirt-more like cool, dry dust, really-but it was getting really cold.
She stood and hesitated just momentarily, not sure if she needed to say something, or what to say if she did.
“What are you doing?” said Sunstreaker, flatly.
“Getting ready to go...?”
“Huh. If you want to stay out here longer, you can.”
“Oh! Um, thank you... If it's a bother, it's fine, I'm happy to go back now-”
“It's not like I want to go rushing back to those idiots in camp.”
“...Um.”
There was an awkward silence. Amanda sat back down.
“Bluestreak's an idiot,” Sunstreaker said at last.
The woman stiffened again. “Excuse me?” she said, voice waspish and angry. “He's a wonderful person, and I'm honored that I had the chance to meet him-”
“He worries about stupid things,” Sunstreaker said, and Amanda paused, face going slack with surprise. She didn't know what his tone meant, it was confusing... “Idiot.”
“I don't see how worrying about people liking you is stupid,” Amanda said, quietly. “I'd feel bad if I thought that there was a chance that everyone on Earth would hate me if they saw me.”
Sunstreaker made a noise that sounded almost like a sigh, surprising Amanda again, but she let it go.
“It shouldn't matter. If someone can't see something like that, then they're stupid, so their opinion doesn't matter.”
“I guess,” she replied, sounding dubious. “...It would still kind of hurt. Wouldn't you wonder if it was you instead of them, after a while?”
The silence that followed her comment felt sharper, more pained, for some reason she couldn't name. There were the sounds of Sunstreaker shifting, and nothing more. Amanda wished she could see. At least that way she could attempt to understand alien robot body-language. They seemed to talk a lot like humans, so maybe that would translate as well... No, that seemed unlikely...
“No,” said Sunstreaker suddenly.
“Huh?” said Amanda, startled. “No what?”
“You don't start to think it's you.”
“Oh!” It made sense-she'd believe that nobody really liked Sunstreaker. She also didn't believe him when he said it didn't start to hurt after a while. “...Maybe it's just me, then. How do you know Bluestreak?”
“He's part of my team. It was just the three of us: me, Bluestreak and my brother. For... millennia.”
“That sounds...
“It sounds lonely. Wait-brother? How does that work?”
“Our sparks are tied. Our-hearts, our souls, whatever. Your stupid human language is useless.”
“I like English, and it works well for me. That must be-hard, I guess. But it sounds... nice? I don't know.”
“Sides is an idiot. And I would do anything for him.”
Amanda was inclined to believe him. “Is anyone not an idiot to you? And who's this 'Sides' person? I don't think I've met him...”
“You have. It's short for Sideswipe.”
“...Sideswipe. You're his brother.”
“Yeah.”
“He-argh! He's the one who picked me up! I was... I was-it was horrifying, I've never been so scared in my life, I-I... It's inhuman! He was...”
“Watch it.”
“He picked me up when I had just woken up. I couldn't see, and he was 'proving' that the Autobots were real-of course I didn't believe it when Sam just told me! I can't see-and I was scared, alone, confused, this has never happened to me before and-and I'm vulnerable, I hate saying that, but I really can't see, I didn't know anything, I couldn't even see what kind of place I was in, all I knew was that it echoed strangely but I'd gotten hit on the head, I didn't know what it had messed up-I was so scared...” She was almost crying, she realized, reliving the experience.
“...I'm sorry.” The apology almost sounded as if it should be a threat. “...I'm not my brother.”
Amanda didn't say anything for a slow, cold minute. “What... What do you mean by that?” she asked. Her voice cracked on the first word, her throat choked with tears and stress, and she cleared her throat before trying again.
“Sideswipe says that a lot. He's the nice one of us.”
“...I'd disagree,” Amanda said softly. “You've been... Nice.”
“Don't lie,” Sunstreaker said, sharply.
“No! You have! You're talking to me. And you've told me the truth-at least, I think you have. You didn't have to... help calm me down. You've answered my questions. You-you even stayed out here with me! I was all ready to go back to the main group, no questions asked. You've been rude, too, but you've been nice. And with Bluestreak-he's your friend too, isn't he?”
“...Yeah.” Again, the confession sounded like it needed to be dragged out of him by the teeth.
“And you haven't scared me the way Sideswipe did.”
“...I don't know what the slag he was thinking then,” the mech confessed. “We're not the same person. I'm not my brother. Sides says that a lot. He's the one who likes people. I don't understand it! But everyone thinks that he's going to get violent too, because I do.” There was a smug satisfaction to the words, not at the reaction other Autobots had to Sideswipe, but at the violence. Which was kind of worrying. Amanda's stomach knotted with slight fear, and she forced herself to make a conscious decision to not be afraid of him.
“You... Don't really seem to like people either,” she said.
“I don't like anyone.”
“You like Bluestreak.” A thoughtful pause. “And Sideswipe.”
There wasn't any answer.
“Do... Do you hate me?”
“...Not yet.”
oOo
It was bitterly cold, and Amanda was shivering.
“We're going back,” announced Sunstreaker suddenly. “You're malfunctioning or something.”
“It's just a little c-cold,” the woman managed, through chattering teeth. “Nothing to really worry about.”
“You humans glitch with no reason all the time,” Sunstreaker growled. “I don't need to know how this will slag you up. Get in.”
“Where... Where are you?” Amanda asked. She'd lost track of his position-stupid her. She needed to pay better attention! And she hated asking. She'd decided not to be afraid of Sunstreaker, but didn't mean she liked him-although she thought, maybe, that she might. She still didn't want to seem vulnerable in front of him.
“Over here,” he said.
“Am I getting closer?”
“A little to your right. Further.”
Amanda was grateful for the way he treated it. No teasing, no condescension, no special notice at all. After the day she'd had, it was a real breath of fresh air-and one she'd appreciated. She'd had a few too many of the non-metaphorical version of those over the course of the day. It was strange, to have the very air smell different. She was a city person at heart, no question.
It was much warmer inside of him; just getting out of the wind made a huge difference. He'd turned on his heater, too, and she was almost positive that that was only for her benefit. The inside smelled alien and metallic, and the thick air seemed to close in around her, but in a good way.
She was reminded of where she was when the seat belt moved into her hand when her questing fingers reached for it.
...That was still kind of creepy. She was inside him. All the Transformers seemed to think it was normal and natural, but it just seemed wrong to her...
“What do you look like?” she asked, at last.
“I'm the best-looking,” came the prompt-and vain-answer. She stifled an inappropriate giggle.
“Really? I... Can't tell.”
There was an amused silence. And Amanda was almost sure-almost positive-when Sunstreaker spoke up again that he was joking. “That's too bad. You're missing out.”
There was another period of quiet, but it felt easy, comfortable. They jolted their way over the rocks. It seemed like it was taking a while, but that made a certain amount of sense-it wasn't like a car could move as the crow flies, in these mountains.
The sudden boom of an explosion-accompanied by a flare of light, Amanda guessed, but she didn't know-shocked her out of it.
“Out,” demanded Sunstreaker, and Amanda obeyed, with alacrity. And then he was gone, and she was sitting on the rough scree of a mountainside, listening to guns and the scrape and squeal of metal. There was screaming, human and Autobot. And Decepticon? That had to be it.
They were scary like this. They hadn't been, earlier. Megatron. She could fear that name, now. But he was dead, right? So it wouldn't be him.
That wasn't much comfort. It could be anyone else.
The sudden stomping of footsteps, approaching rapidly and then overhead, made her scream. She didn't know-
--End Chapter 8--