Till Death Do Us Part

1. It Begins

Life had become a swirling vortex of colors, all brilliant, all beautiful. They wove around each other like snakes one minute, only to burst forth all at once the next. It was quite interesting. More than interesting, actually, the colors were all that mattered.

There was a part of her mind, still somewhat rational and intact, that realized perhaps the colors weren't a good sign. At first, that voice had railed constantly, screaming something about hospital beds, and pain, and maybe even death. Soon though, that somewhat rational part of her mind, that tiny little speck in the back of her skull, realized that all the railing and screaming was pointless. First, it had quieted to a dull roar, then to only a feeble whisper.

Sometimes it would whisper about her friends and loved ones. It would tell her that to sink permantly into the radiant swirl of colors and leave them would be to devastate them. That for their sake, if not her own, she had to fight. Fight for her life, fight for clarity. That for God's sake, if nothing else, don't go out a mindless vegetable. Don't leave this world in a senseless accident that meant nothing. Still, the one tiny spark of coherence, the one surviving bit of her mind would realize that it was a losing battle. And it despaired.

Then, there was a NEW voice. It came from nowhere and everywhere. It seemed to come from within her, but not.

The Voice asked, "What would you do to save those you love?"

She heard the Voice. Not the nagging screaming part of her that had tried for so long to distract her from the colors. She heard this new voice. But she didn't quite grasp its meaning. She heard tone, its timbre, felt the deepness of it seem to vibrate her bones, but she didn't know what it was saying. She was too immersed in the colors.

Then the colors were clearing, and quite clearly, she heard the Voice repeat itself, "What would you do to save those you love?"

She understood the meaning of the sounds now, and that large part of her that lived in the colors tried to go back, to once again submerse itself in peace, because she knew that whatever this Voice was offering, it wasn't peace. Nope. No way. She'd read enough books and watched enough movies to know that if some mysterious voice started asking you deep, meaningful questions, nothing good would follow. So she tried to retreat, but before she could, that whispering, nagging little spark in the back of her mind, saw its chance, and raced forward to answer, not in a whisper, but in a clear, ringing shout, "Anything! I'll do anything!!"

With an explosion that was surely no less than that created by the Big Bang, her mind flew together, all of its previously disjointed pieces once again united, and she was no longer some mindless thing floating in the colors. Indeed, the colors were gone, and she was Mikaela Banes again, her mind whole and untouched.

She listened to what the Voice said to her, asking questions when she needed clarity. Oh, she was so afraid, and as the Voice continued, her fear morphed into something more like terror. But she understood the Voice's terms, mostly anyway, and she would do what needed to be done.

She always had.

Sam sat in numb, stunned silence. His brain felt like it had either been replaced with a fat ball of cotton, or someone had given it a stir with a wooden spoon. He really wasn't sure which. The N.E.S.T. med-bay chair he'd been glued to for the past two weeks was far from comfortable, but he didn't notice it. Nor did he notice the silent tears tracking down his face to drip quietly on the polished metal floor. He felt Bumblebee's had rest gently on his back, but it seemed to come from far away. He glanced around the room dumbly.

Everyone was there, his parents, Mikaela's dad, the Autobots. All their faces mirrored his to some degree or another: quiet, wrenching, grief. This year was supposed to be one of planning and togetherness, but it had all gone so horribly wrong.

After Egypt, there'd been so much to do. So many causes and effects to explain. At least the president was no longer considering deporting the Autobots as a possibility, there was that. While Sam wanted and decided to return to Princeton to finish his education, it was also decided that he should probably wait a year, to let the heat die down. His picture had been flashed worldwide to a very scared audience, and while the public at large had been reassured of its safety, well, the government had lied to the public before about the existance of aliens, so now, maybe the public wasn't quite as quick to believe it when they were told they were safe. Maybe someone would get it into their head that the only way to gaurentee their own safety would be with Sam Witwicky's death. It was possible. In fact, the United States government thought it was likely.

So did Sam. For that reason, he was going to stay holed up at N.E.S.T headquarters for at least a year. Hopefully, that would be long enough for people to start to relax, for the picture flashed briefly on their screens to start to fade and grow fuzzy in their memories. At first, the thought of isolation made him wickedly depressed. Sure, he'd have the Autobots, and Will Lennox and his men for company, but it wasn't the same as having his family and friends. Then he found out- they planned on coming with them. It was safer for them, for one thing, but they also figured it might be fun. His parents were there, Judy seemed to have a great time fussing over the soldier boys, as were Mikaela and her dad, and Leo.

Everything was perfect, up until two weeks ago. Mikaela had taken her cherry red motorcycle out for a quick drive, just to test the new custom shocks she and her dad had installed. She said she would be back in fifteen minutes.

An old couple had pulled out in front of her.

Mikaela was rushed to Mercy general, where her skull was pieced back together in their trauma center, and she was stablized. They said there was no hope. Hers was not a restorative coma where the body and mind shut down so it could heal. No, she'd suffered massive brain damage. There was no coming back. When it was safe, she was medivacc'd to the N.E.S.T. medical bay, where Ratchet examined her, and echoed the same prognosis as the doctors at Mercy. Massive brain damage. Lucky to be breathing on her own. No hope.

A few hours ago, there seemed to be a tiny light glowing in the dark. Mikaela's brainwaves, always closely monitered, had starting spiking off the charts. For about three hours they ceased to look like the brainwaves of a person in a coma, and instead started looking like the brainwaves of a person having a very bad nightmare. Ratchet told everyone not to get their hopes up, but the hope was there, a collective thought mirrored in everyone present: If she's dreaming now, maybe she'll wake up.

Instead, three hours after Mikaela's comatose terror began, she flat-lined.

At least she's not afraid anymore, Sam thought. And with it, his control left him, and he sobbed, shoulders shaking in misery. Through tear blurred vision, he saw Optimus Prime, head and back bowed, optics dimmed, and thought for just a second that maybe he knew Mikaela's reason for wanting only to be friends. That was okay. He was pretty sure Mikaela knew his reason, and sympathized. They had loved each other, God hadn't they, but they'd also realized that sometimes friendship could be more precious between two people than romance, and that was true for them. When they'd made their decision, it was mutual, and a tension they hadn't even realized between them relaxed.

They'd been good as a couple. As friends, they were amazing.

Now, all of that was over. Mikaela was gone.

As if sensing the finality of Sam's thoughts, Mikaela's father stood away from the wall he'd been leaning against, wobbling just a lot, enough for Judy and Ron to reach for him with steadying hands. He nodded absently.

"I have to make arrangements for her." He couldn't bring himself to say 'funeral'. That would only make it seem more real.

Judy, still holding his arm gently, said, "I'll help you."

She'd been dozing. She didn't really need to sleep anymore, but there wasn't much else to do while she waited. When she woke up to cramped and complete darkness, she'd nearly panicked even though she knew what to expect. She felt the confining walls lined with white satin closing in on her, and started trying to claw her way out before she got her shit together, calmed down, and realized that one, she no longer needed to breathe, she just did it out of habit, and that two, she could see just fine even though not a trace of light could find its way into her coffin, which was buried in a cement vault, six feet beneath the ground.

She just had to think for a minute. Mikaela needed to inhabit her body while she was doing what she'd been brought back to do, however, it wouldn't have been good for her corpse to hop off the med-bay table and wander off. It would raise too many questions, and she couldn't afford that. There were rules that had to be followed, she had to tow the line, and if she crossed that line, put so much as toe over, she'd be sent away, mission incomplete, and the lives of those she loved would be lost.

So, she had to wait, and let herself be buried. At least the Voice, or the Voice's owner, more like, had enough influence over events to make sure that her body was not prepped like it was supposed to be for a funeral. Mikaela had a feeling that embalming fluid would have been less than fun.

It probably would have sucked to wake up and find that her eyelids had been sewn shut, too.

She'd been assured that she would be released from her grave when the time was right, so all she had to do was wait, not panic, and pray that the Voice didn't forget about her.

That was a disturbing thought.

Blessfully, she didn't have to wait long. One minute she was laying in her coffin, appreciating that her father hadn't skimped and had gotten her something nice with a soft lining, and the next, she was rising through the ground and concrete to sit on top of her own grave. Her back was to the headstone. She didn't turn around and look at it, either. It was too creepy. Instead, she stood up, tried brushing herself off, and realized it was futile. She was covered in dirt from head to toe, and she smelled like a grave. As far as Mikaela was concerned, if the Voice had the power to not only reanimate her, but to get her out of her coffin and vault, he could have at least made sure she wasn't dirty. Then again, she wasn't going to complain too much. She'd rather be up here than down there, and at least she'd looked nice at her funeral.

Mikaela looked around. She was in the cemetary in Tranquility. Her father had brought her home to bury her. Of course, there was no water or reflective surfaces nearby. That just figured. She'd been given certain powers in her new dead-but-not-quite status, but she'd still have to hoof it a bit.

Oh, well. She had urgent business to attend to. And she really needed a shower and new clothes. She couldn't slack, and she couldn't fail. Sam and the others had one week to live.

One week.

A/N: Ok, so the basic idea for this comes from The Face, a novel by Dean Koontz (If you haven't read it, give it a try, its a great book). I read it just before I watched RotF on DVD. And this plot bunny was born. I will be taking some elements from the novel, but obviously, its not going to be exactly like The Face because it is Transformers fan fiction, and the plot is therefore bound to be different. Hopefully, this story will turn out fairly well because I've been reading Dean Koontz for at least 20 years now, and I'd hate to write something that would maybe make him sad if he read it and realized that his story inspired crap. Yanno?

Also, yeah, the first part was kinda depressing, but I'm quite sure that it will get less doom-y.

And for anyone reading this and wondering, no I haven't forgotten about Skate Park, the next chapter is about halfway finished. Finally, I hope there are no glaring formatting errors or anything, my Open Office totally DIED, so I'm actually writing with Wordpad at the moment. ::Cries, whines, and bitches::

Hopefully, ya'll will enjoy. Any and all feed back is greatly appreciated as always.

Enjoy!