Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Transformers the Movie, or the TV series, comics, or cartoons and am not in any way affiliated with Hasbro/Dreamworks or any of the other companies with rights to the Transformers, characters, and logos, et cetera. The only characters I own are the original characters.

Suspended Reality

"Blow out your candles, Maggie!" a voice said.

Maggie turned around to see her parents standing at the kitchen table, and gesturing to a large birthday cake with the number seven written on it in blue icing and candles surrounding it. She blinked her eyes, feeling strange and heavy.

"Come on, M&M, you can do it!" her father cheered. He always called her M&M, like the candy, because of her initials.

Maggie smiled brightly and stood on her toes, taking a deep breath to blow out the candles. When she inhaled sharply, she cried out in pain, doubling over. Her parents still stood there, smiling at her and laughing, as little Maggie began to cough up gobs of blood on the floor, retching and struggling to breathe.

Someone began calling her name, and it was very faint, and everything went black. There was silence, and then Maggie opened her eyes again. She was sitting in the hospital waiting room. She must've fallen asleep. She looked at her watch, and then stood up, tapping her feet to try and revive them. She had to have been sleeping for a while, but she felt so utterly drained.

A grip on her arm made her turn to face her mother, who gave her a comforting pat. "I'm sure he'll be fine," she said.

Maggie opened her mouth to speak, but a doctor in a pair of blue scrubs approached them. "Mrs. Madsen?" he asked, a clipboard in his hand.

"Yes, that's me," her mother said, tucking graying blonde strands behind her ear. "How is my husband, did the surgery go as planned?" she asked. She looked so worn and tired.

The doctor shook his head gently. "I'm sorry. We were unable to remove the blockage, and we lost him on the table. The hospital offers you condolences. There was nothing further we could do. I'm sorry," he said again. He excused himself very quickly, leaving the two women to face each other.

"Dad's... dead?" Maggie said, not sure she was processing the information correctly.

Her mother began speaking to her, but all Maggie could hear was static and noise, some horrible distortion that hurt her ears. She kept trying to move away, but her mother had grabbed her arm and clamped down, so much that it hurt, and Maggie began screaming and trying to push her away. It was ineffective - she couldn't get her mother off of her, and her mother began slamming her into the wall, screaming a strange, siren sort of yell.

Maggie felt intense pain and a crushing sort of force. She could hear fighting, screaming, thunder, gunfire. 'Why can't I MOVE?' she thought desperately, trying to get out from wherever this dark place she was in. It was so cold, so utterly desolate. She wanted to come back so very badly.

Barricade had taken Maggie's advice, and shortly after she'd left, he'd decided to roll around the city and get some exercise, not that he actually needed it. He was on his way back shortly after sundown when he saw the helicopter circling nearby, and sped up, taking a back route to the train yard. When he turned the corner, he had to slam on his brakes before he nearly became part of the wreckage himself.

What he saw horrified him. He had never felt real fear, real terror before, but this was... Maggie's WRX was laying on the driver's side, propped up against the pole of the stoplight. There was broken glass, car parts, and worst of all, blood, scattered all across the pavement, glistening in the yellow lights of the street lamps as he slowly rolled forward. He couldn't sense any signs of life from inside the vehicle.

He looked around, not seeing any other vehicles in the immediate area. She'd been hit by something extremely large, and yet, there were no other pieces of another vehicle in the road, on the grass - not even a tiny shred of shrapnel connecting what hit her. He only knew of one thing that could do that, and transformed quickly. He needed to get Maggie out of the vehicle and see if there was even a chance she was still alive.

"Maggie!" he yelled as he hurried towards the overturned car. He had almost reached it when Ironhide began firing mercilessly at him, the heat rounds penetrating his armor, though thankfully missing anything vital. He was knocked over from the blast, and came to lay at the side of the WRX, able enough to see inside of it. He stared directly into Maggie's eyes as she lay, motionless, body half crushed by the dash of the car. He couldn't even sense a heartbeat. In the back, he saw Frenzy, splayed out across the seat, also not putting off any living frequencies.

He was filled with an emotion then that he had never experienced before. In his day, Barricade had felt anger and even sorrow, but he had never had a combination of both incredible loss and blind rage. He pushed himself up off the ground slowly as Ironhide strode towards him, his pace leisurely and his laugh rich and deep. Barricade felt dizzy as he rose, and he couldn't place on whether it was because he was injured or what was going through his mind at the moment.

"Sorry about your girlfriend, Decepticon, but let's face it - it never would have worked out anyways. I mean, for one, her boyfriend was working for Sector 7. This whole thing was just a trap to catch you," he sang, folding his massive arms as Barricade swayed in place.

"That isn't true, Autobot scum," he snarled. It couldn't be true. As much as he disliked Sam, the boy was genuine, and he could see it in Maggie, too. But who was he to get bent out of shape for being lied too, honestly? The entire hierarchy of Megatron was built on lies, on power and cunning, and in blood and pain. Who was he, really, to feel betrayed?

Ironhide could sense it as he stared his opponent down, and fed off of it. "Oh, yes it is. She led them right to you. Did you honestly think she was your friend? Barricade, come on. You've not been on Earth that long to start yearning for a functioning relationship. Humans have made you grow soft," he teased with a harsh chuckle.

"That's a load of space shit," he retorted. He was starting to feel it again, that anger building up inside him. "The girl had nothing to do with Sector 7 outside of this endeavor. She is innocent, and she was trying to help me to leave, not destroy the planet, so please, tell me where in the almighty Autobot creed does it say that you get to SMASH INTO INNOCENT HUMANS WHO AREN'T HARMING ANYTHING?"

"It isn't always so black and white, Barricade," he said with a methodical grin. "Perhaps Optimus follows the teachings of the straight and narrow, but I think we should have executed you all when we had the chance. I don't share his love for humans, least of all one who was trying to aid my ENEMY, so you'll excuse me if I have to cast my ballot as, 'Not giving a shit'. Now, if you'll step aside please, I need to ensure that there are no witnesses." He raised his blaster and aimed it at the vehicle.

"NO!" Barricade roared. He sprang forward, tackling Ironhide and throwing him down to the ground. Unlike Bumblebee, Ironhide was large, but for that he had sacrificed some level of agility and made up for it with weapons. If Barricade could disarm him, he was more than matched. He thrust a knee down into Ironhide's midsection, yanking him up simultaneously to head butt him with a disgusting crack. The round he'd fired had gone completely sideways, causing a huge explosion and a large crater in the road. Chunks of asphalt rained down on both of them as they wrestled.

"The Decepticon with a heart of gold!" he laughed, unphased by Barricade's onslaught. He was caught by surprise as his face was smashed, and snaked an arm around to grab him by the back, ripping him off of him and throwing him aside like a doll. Barricade slid several yards and then rolled to a stand.

"That's enough out of you," he threatened. He dug his feet into the ground as Ironhide brushed himself off. On the way into the air, Barricade had managed to grab a hold of Ironhide's weapon, and now had it safely hidden behind him for the moment.

"Or, what, Barricade? You'll tell on me? Please. You think they'd believe you over me?" He laughed again, and then reached for his blaster. "I'm just going to end it now while you still have some shred of dignity left." His hand patted against his hip, but the weapon had been removed. "What the --?"

He looked up as Barricade raised the blaster and fired several rounds directly at his head. There was a thunderous crash as Ironhide's body hit the ground, limp and lifeless.

Barricade flung the weapon from himself and ran back to the car, reaching down and prying the side of it open as carefully as he could.

"Maggie! Maggie!" he yelled, trying to see if there was anything, anyone home at all inside of her.

Everything was silent for a moment except the sound of distant sirens, and then Maggie's eyes blinked once. Slowly, but definitely.

"MAGGIE!" he screamed. He reached around the back and grabbed Frenzy, giving him a good zap with his own energy. The robot sprang to life, running around in circles on the pavement, his last memory still all he knew. He stopped suddenly when he realized he was no longer in the study with Maggie being shot at, and froze when he viewed the aftermath of the wreckage.

"!!!!!!!" he screamed.

"Help me get her to the hospital, Frenzy, or the last chance we have to get off of this rock is going to DIE," he boomed. He transformed back into the police vehicle after setting Maggie on the ground, and swung the back door open.

Maggie definitely had a broken femur. The bone was thrust directly through the top of her thigh, and there was a massive amount of blood on her midsection. One of her arms was definitely broken, probably multiple times, and she had various lacerations on her face from the glass. When Barricade had moved her, she had left a pool of it in the vehicle. She was barely breathing, and it came out in a strange gurgling sound. Barricade was almost positive she had internal injuries. He could even believe she was still alive now, but he couldn't concentrate on the new sensations he was feeling, he just needed her to survive, and that was more important than trying to sort himself out.

Frenzy tried to, as carefully as he could, lift her into the back seat, and Barricade aided him with the same tools he had used to terrify Sam before. They laid her across the back, and then Frenzy grabbed the very broken transmitter and jumped into the passenger seat.

"GOOOO!" he wailed, jumping up and down in the seat.

Barricade threw on every light and siren the car possessed, speeding out of the intersection and headed straight for the freeway. It was the fastest way he knew to get to St Mary's Hospital, and the best chance they had of saving Maggie's very waning life.