First of all I'd like to apologize for not only starting one but two stories that I've sorta let go…

Long story short life has just been crazy. My dad broke up with his girlfriend which led to me getting to go on a cruise (Which was awesome) and then he gets back together with her and proposes… Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing yet.

On top of that there have been a few deaths in the family, not anyone close but ya know how it is, have to make an appearance.

Work has been busy, what with the transfer to the bigger busier store and yeah…

Lastly. At the tender age of 22 I've been diagnost with Degenerative Disc Disease…It's not really a disease but something that happens when you get older. The short explanation is that it causes (and has caused me) massive back pain (for a year now) and due to the pinching of nerves causes my right leg to go numb.

I'm in the process of getting an mri done to determine whether or not I have to have surgery which will totally flip my life around.

Because of this I'm on several strong pain killers that are sorta working, they dull the pain but it's still there. The only thing their really good for is making me very tired. Needless to say my posts are probably going to have more grammical/spelling/etc errors in it and I'm sorry.

You guys can thank ViolentBigGrl for hunting me down on Deviant Art. She made me want to get back to writing when I felt too run down. It was nice to hear from someone after so long. ^_^ Thanks!

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"Hey Anne… can we talk?" David questioned, calling up the stairs.

Packing in her room the teen frowned at the serious sound of her father's voice. Rarely did he ever sound so serious.

"Sure." Running a hand through her brunette hair she stood before making her way to the living room. Curling up in one of the chairs she eyed the deposit box sitting on the coffee table. "What's up? Do you have some uber secret could destroy the world? Information that you're now intrusting to me?"

He gave a slight smile, "I'll tell you about that later." He answered; she of course took it as a joke. "Anne. You know that we were involved in the Houston bombing when you were little?"

"Yeah…" She frowned not understanding why he was bringing that up. She'd only been five when that had occurred and the event had been enough to send her mother close to the edge. She'd grown up taking care of her mother, not the other way around. Then again Anne couldn't blame her, had she been an adult during the attack she figured she would have freaked too.

"And you know your mother was always…sensitive." He furthered and she nodded, her mother had always been overprotective, obsessively so. In the end her mother's mind had body and just been too weak, six years ago she'd passed away.

"She was like that before the attack as well Anne and when the explosions began…Anne I was so scared for her, and for our little girl." She narrowed her eyes at his choice of words, "I promised that when you were an adult and…and when your mother could handle it, I'd tell you."

"Dad what are you-"

"Anne, I love you. I always have and I always will. And I'm sorry that I've done this to you."

----f-l-a-s-h-b-a-c-k-y----

"David….David! Where's Melissa? Where is she?"

"Mary we have to go. This building is going to collapse!" He was frantic, the burning rubble around them was groaning in protest, threatening to give way. He wasn't heartless. Far from it, after the blast he'd come to relatively quickly. He'd found Melissa first and it had been heart breaking. The father in him wanted to lift the concrete slab, the logic in him took one look at what remained of her form and knew that his little girl was already gone.

Finding his wife had come next. "Mary we have to leave now!" He shouted and she resorted to tears, unable to comprehend why her husband was shouting, why he wanted to leave their baby girl missing. Refusing her pleas David forced her away from the crumbling building.

"-got a live one over here!" Came the faint sounds of the rescue workers. They came into sight as David finally breathed a sigh of relief it seemed they were out of immediate danger. "Parents? Any signs of the parents?"

"My baby!" David blinked at his wife's sudden cry, and sudden strength in pulling free to rush over, "My baby girl you're alright!" To this day he knew he was selfish. He knew it was wrong, but he loved his wife, losing their only daughter would kill her.

"Get your family out of here!" One of the rescuers shouted to him, pointing towards the area set up to supply first aid to the bombing victims. Nodding deftly he wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulders, glancing down at the frightened girl in her arms.

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Anne was silent, the tone of her father's voice, the mention of her mother's fragile mind, talking about that horrible attack. Her father wouldn't joke about any of those things. Her father- No, he wasn't. "But…how?" She didn't really trust her voice, rightfully so, it barely formed the words.

David sighed, at least she wasn't throwing things at him, yet. "We moved, for starters. Began a new life here. I had the government pull up the papers, change of name…birth records. Anne I did this for your mother, she wouldn't have survived if-"

"If she knew her real daughter was dead. So you gave her a fake a replacement. Is that what it was?" Anger, reasonably.

David closed his eyes for a moment, "Anne. I love you, you are my daughter. I told you, I know it was wrong and I can't ask you to forgive me for that, but I had to come clean. It wasn't fair for me to hide this from you."

Leaning forward he opened the deposit box, "This is everything, things you had on when we found you, legal documents of your change of name…original documents for Melissa…" He fell silent for a few moments, all he'd had to do was use his military clearance and explain that all the original documents had been lost in the attack. Forging new documents had been relatively easy. "I do love you Anne." He seemed bent on reminding her of that fact.

Frowning as she glanced over the things he began to pull out and place on the table she did the only logical thing her mind could come up with at the time. She ran away. Not even bothering to grab shoes or a coat to fight the evenings chilling air she only grabbed a set of keys before running towards the curb.

Barricade for his part had no idea why the femme seemed to be panicking as she climbed into the driver's seat, forcing the key in a little harder than he'd like. His engine only gave a rev of protest that was quickly drowned out as she hit the gas. Oh….David was going to hear it from him later.

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It's hard to imagine what one might do in a situation such as Anne's. It's easier to imagine your parents sitting you down and telling you exactly what David had told her, however the response is the difficult part. Initially her mind had ordered a fight or flight response. She'd taken the latter of the two.

For a while she'd merely driven local streets places she knew, areas she was familiar with, eventually she went farther, to areas she'd been before but locations and streets were new. Funny she'd lived here all her life, no, all the life she could remember and yet only one city over and she could lose herself to a world she'd never been before.

Occupying her thoughts that way she tried to keep her mind off of more important matters. The longer she thought about it, the calmer she became. Regardless of new information, Dave was still the father she'd known and loved all her life, it wasn't as if he'd kept her locked in some cage or anything…and her mother…Sure she'd not been all there mentally but the woman had loved her like her own daughter.

Was it right for her to hold this new knowledge against the man that had raised her, cared for her and loved her? It certainly didn't change the fact that he'd always been there for her. However it did leave her wondering, was there some other family looking for their little girl? Had they forgotten her? Given up hope? Was she anything like them? Were they good people, or bad? It was a stupid thought but she wondered these things anyway.

So lost in her thoughts she never noticed when the Saleen slowed, pulling off to the side of the road and parked. Engine idlying still Barricade remained silent; sure, his scans were no where near as in depth as the medics but he could tell when a meatbag was shocked and this went beyond that.

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The engine David heard pulling up to the house was not the one he was looking forward to hearing. Then again he wasn't sure if he wanted Anne to return anytime soon after all, they might not have been related by blood but his little girl had her mother's temper.

Glancing out the front window he caught sight of a large black truck, recognizing the emblem it bore on it's hood. He remembered this one metal wasn't it? Steel..no..ah yes, Iron…Iron something.

Deciding he'd best not keep an Autobot waiting the scientist headed outside, only then noticing the reasonably smaller red car that was parked along side the large black behemoth. Was it just him or did these aliens have expensive taste? Due to the Autobot logo replacing the usual factory label he couldn't tell off hand what sort of car the red one was but later he was informed by a rather giddy mech that it was a Nissan 2008 GTR. "Dr. Stone." Ironhide greeted something, voice deep and even.

"Afternoon." He replied with a slight wave, "You must be…" He trailed off glancing towards the smaller, less intimidating vehicle.

"Preceptor." The mech supplied before adding, "Simply a fascinating planet you have here Dr. Stone."

"Uh…Thanks." The middle aged man commented, the Autobot made it seem like he was personally responsible for the creation of the planet.

"Where's Barricade?" Ironhide questioned, his scanner's not picking up the former Decepticon's signal.

That caused the human to sigh, "Out with my daughter." He commented deciding to leave it at that, he doubted any of them wanted to hear about his family troubles.

Speaking of family troubles his cell phone decided it was an appropriate time to ring. Frowning he excused himself and hearing neither mech protest he pulled out his phone to answer.

"Linda…? What's-" The small frown he was wearing only grew.

"Oh Linda…" His voice was filled with sympathy, however it quickly changed in response to something she'd said, "Don't you even think about it. You do what you have to do. Anne's a big girl she can take care of herself—I know, I know but don't worry about it. I've got more than enough to get her a nice apartment."

Several more minutes passed in which the human male paced his front yard while the two vehicles sat silent and unassuming. When the conversation finally ended and the human sighed it was the smaller red car that spoke up first, "Dr. Stone? Your biological signs are showing that you are upset." It was a statement, but one that clearly wanted to know why the human was upset.

Ironhide, having finished his job of escorting Preceptor to his new station, didn't really feel like listening to whatever explanation the human had. Mumbling the large black truck excused himself, backed out of the drive way and headed for home.

Had he not spent years explaining the human world to Barricade David might have been a little put off by the invasive question. "That was Linda, my sister-in-law. Anne was going to live with her while going to college." He explained first, letting them know what was supposed to happen before, "She just got a call that her mother had a stroke. She's moving across country to go take care of her with the rest of the family." He waited a few seconds, to see if the bot could bridge the connection that Linda moving meant Anne had no where to stay.

"There is no where else for her to go?" Preceptor questioned, David shrugged.

"She can always say on campus in the dorms, but they aren't ideal." Walking around the house he headed for the garage, motioning for the mech to follow, "I could get her an apartment but I worry about her being alone."

Scanning the area first to make sure there were no eyes on him Preceptor slowly rolled forward, following the human. "She will have Barricade with her, I doubt there is anything, save a Decepticon attack that would harm her. Even then it would take several 'cons to bring him down."

David shook his head briefly as he punched in the code allowing the garage door to begin rising. It was electronic allowing the mechs to tap in and open or close the door at their will. "I'm not worried about that…Okay I am a little, can't help but worry. But I worry about her mentally, emotionally. It can be hard being out there all alone. Especially with…" he frowned trailing off, "It can just be difficult."

"I see." Preceptor offered, though it was far from the truth. He understood parental worry, and the worry over the femme's emotional state but his quick search of the internet showed that thousands of younglings leave home for college every year. However it was his duty not only to work with the human to further Energon conversion technology but to provide for his well being, physically and mentally. "What if there was another family that could take her in?"

"There's not. Linda was the only one living close to the college and even then it was about a forty five minute drive to campus."

"I did not mean a family with relations to yours. Well at least not a martial relation." When David motioned for the car to enter the garage Preceptor rolled forward to take up one of the two available spots.

"What do you mean?"

"Your family is not the only one with Autobot relations."

"I know that." David gave him a somewhat flat look.

Preceptor didn't take the annoyed tone to spark. "There is another family living in the same general area to which Barricade was going to be assigned; I'm assuming of course that is the location to where your youngling was supposed to be moving."

Ah, now David understood, "It's a nice suggestion Preceptor but…for starters I couldn't just ask some random family to take in my daughter, besides that, I'm not going to make her move in with a bunch of strangers."

"I understand your hesitation. However I have already relayed the suggestion to their guardian, he has informed me that they would be more than willing to take her in, should you and your youngling so decide."

David sighed, great, well there goes the 'well we don't want to impose' option. "I'll mention it to her." It was the most he could offer and it seemed to appease the Autobot.

Night was well underway by the time the dark Saleen pulled into the drive. David had long since returned to the house, letting Perceptor catch up on his recharge, which the scientist had mentioned he was short on prior to landfall.

Using the remote garage opener Anne frowned at the sporty little two door occupying half the garage. At least it explained why the truck was parked on the street curb. Pulling the Saleen in she parked and sat. Briefly her anger flared, he drops this bomb on her and then goes and buys a sports car? She doubted the vehicle was for her as her father knew red wasn't one of her favorite colors.

Turning off the engine she continued to sit. She'd taken her brief absence and used the time to think. Now that she was back she doubted her decision, sighing at her lack of resolve she shook her head. Steeling her nerves she climbed out of the Saleen and headed for the house. In her state she never noticed the garage door closing itself.