Author's Notes: This was originally a songfic meme, so I apologise if there are any sudden changes in the background tone. Also, the title "somnium est verus" means "the dream is real". You'll see exactly what that means later.

This takes place sometime towards the end of the RPS series.

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She was headed to work at the local restaurant when she first noticed the white sportscar following her. The music playing through the car's stereo could be heard clearly through it's barely-opened windows. "It's been a long time, I never shoulda left you without a dope-beat to step to, step to..."

The slim blonde tried to ignore the music, and gave the white Porsce a glance over her shoulder, noting the blue racing stripes and number four on it's side. She shook her head and continued, hurrying along. Whoever was driving it was driving VERY slow, following her. it was unnerving. When she reached the front door of the two-story brick building, she heaved a sigh of relief as she yanked the heavy front door open and hurried inside.

Three hours later, she slipped out of the back of the restaurant to smoke a cigarette on her lunch break. Sure, being a waitress/hostess wasn't the best job in the world, but it payed allright. Not the best pay, but that was okay. Any income was better than none.

He glanced over and spotted it.
That Car.
It was back.

Sitting there placidly in the parking lot was the car. That bright white Porsche. It was parked, most definitely. The engine was turend off. The blonde glanced around for it's owner, and deciding he had probably gone into the restaurant for a drink at the bar (and to friggin stalk her!) she crept over to it. No driver. She peeked into one tinted window, cracked open a couple inches. She glanced at the restaurant's front door as it squeaked open and a couple exited, talking noisily amongst themselves. After the door thunked shut and she was satisfied nobody else had exited, her attention turned back to the beautiful sportscar before her. "Hmm, aren't you a beautiful thing." she mused, running her fingertips along the lines of the roof. Her hand stopped trailing at the passenger side rearview mirror. She could have sworn she just saw it move. Furrowing her brow, she reached out and ran a couple fingers from the base of the strut out to the end of it, at the back. She would have hated to put even a single fingerprint on the mirror of a beautiful sportscar like this.

Surely enough, the reaction was instantaneously. The car flicked it's mirror like a cat might flick it's ear when tickled while sleeping.

The blonde yanked her hand back as though burned with a small gasp.

She glanced around quickly to see if this was possibly a prank of some kind. When she listened even for the smallest sound and found none, she reached out and did a quick circle on the back of that mirrow. This time it did a double-flick and a soft giggle sounded. A male sounding giggle. The blonde took a step back, and shook her head "I must be dreaming." she shook the thought out of her head and started to head back towards the building. Unfortunately, said car was parked at the side of the building, the the young woman wasn't so sure that "car" wouldn't just run right over the sparking bump and pin her to the wall of it. She sighed and hurried in front of it anyway. The back door to the kitchen had locked itself when she went out of it, so her only choice now was to go back in the front. And it was to her left. She sure wasn't going to walk behind that car. That meant walking in the entry-lane of the parking lot anyway.

"Psst, hey waitaminute!"

She stopped when she heard the voice. A Male one at that. She instantly knew where it was coming from. She cursed herself inwardly for just walking over to the driver's side of the car. This could be a trick (though it was one heck of a great length to go to just to kidnap someone, she decided) and stopped in front of the driver's side front sidepanel. "Look, this isn't funny, okay? I have to go back to work in ten minutes. My lunchbreak is almost over." she told the car. She figured it was an elaborate prank. Slag, she knew she shouldn't have forgotten April Fools day. She wondered if it maybe was today and she had forgotten. Probably the bus boy getting her back for putting exploding inserts in one of his cigarettes. Well, he bummed it off her! and it was April fools day... last year. She shook her head again and started to walk away, pauding only long enough to toss over her shoulder "Oh, and by the way, you'r a very pretty car. Bye now." and she was gone.

Jazz sighed and hunched lower on his tires. This was going to be harder than he thought it would.

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Meanwhile, Somewhere on Cybertron, in a dark dank room, Prowl shifted uneasily in his cell. Chains rattled as the tactician shifted, echoing around the cement walls. Water dripped softly of to one side from an unseen source, and a painful-sounding scream echoed from somewhere down the hall. A malicious sounding laugh followed, and some words he couldn't wuite make out. A door creaked open, sounding so much louder than it should have. The once-white tactician shifted and winced at the pain it caused, quinting against the darkness to try to make out a form. His captor, well, anyone, actually in this primus-forsaken place.

Suddenly, a blinding light clicked on right in his optics. Prowl gave a startled cry and stggered back, trying to raise his arms to block it out. But the heavy chains and manacles kept him from raising his arms to his face. The chains clanked as they were pulled taut. The Decepticon on the outside of the cell just grinned, a smile that promised nothing pleasant.

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Jazz sighed and sped down the open highway. One more time around the block, he told himself. He wondered how he got to be doing laps around the small town in rural Ohio. He bit back a sudden pang of anger. Prime had sent him to get *her*. He didn't know the Covert Ops commander was doing laps when he was supposed to be "doing surveilance" on the blonde. He tried not to be angry. "I should be out lookin for him, not tryin ta convince some blonde she used 'ta be an Autobot." he groused.

It wasn't like she had willingly left. Pfft. Far from it. She had actually had very little say in it. And now Jazz wasn't so sure he wanted her back. He mentally smacked himself, trying to remember what had happened before their big fallout.

They had been really good friends. And she had once been really good at fighting the Decepticons. He had even been training her in a few finer points of infiltration and sabotage. He sighed and shook his head (or the equivalent of it).

He needed to forget that he had started to believe what they'd said about her.

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::One year ago, TF Time::

Jade wheeled midair, cackling. "Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah!" she called, doing a dive. Starscream snarled and dove after her. "I'm gonna get you, just wait!" he yelled. But his voice was less than threatening. Skywarp promptly teleported in front of the femme.
And got ran into.
"OOF!"
Jade snickered. "Well, you weren't supposed to teleport infront of me, numbflaps!" she giggled.
"Oh yeah, you try teleporting and I'll catch you." Starscream rolled his optics and grinned, coming up behind her. "what, no radio to base for help?" Jade glanced over her shoulder, casting a coy smile back at him. "Oh no, I want you all to myself." her grin widened. Thundercracker appeared and grabbed Starscream from behind. "Really? that's too bad, you're not getting him." he kissed at the side of the Air commabnder's throat, nipping the fuel lines, eliciting a sort-of-but-not-quite indignant squeak from Starscream. Jade just chuckled and wiggled out of Skywarp's grasp. She landed at the base of a cliff at the water's edge, waiting for the trio of Decepticons to land before pulling out a datapad. "so, what've you got for me this week?" she asked, sitting on a nearby log. P"I don't know, what've you got?" thundercracker's optics sparkled mischeviously.

"Hmm, let's see... Bumblebee painted up like an actual Bumblebee, uhmm, Gears in a ladybug costume, tracks in a Knight Rider getup, aaaand..." the femmeseeker flipped through a few pages. Starscream snatched the datapad from her hand. "let me see that!" He turned away, leafing through it. Skywarp rolled his optics. "Frenzy glued to the ceiling, Ravage AND laserbeak rubber-banded together." Thundercracker snickered. "He wanted to see if the buzzard could carry the cat if he flapped hard enough." Jade sniggered at the mental picture and Skywarp shot him a look. "It would have worked if soundwave hadn't have run to their rescue."

Skywarp simply sighed dramatically. "Whatever." Jade luaghed.

Her smile dissapeared in a flash, though, when she spotted a dark form flying overhead. She swore softly. "that's omega. I gotta go, guys." She waved the datapad. "Thanks talk to ya later." They nodded. Starscream was still engrossed in the datapad when she added "spank the screamer one for me too, will ya?"P
"BWUH!" starscream's head shot up. Thundercracker grinned from audio to audio. "just nod and say yes, screamer." He goaded. Starscream looked from trinemate to femmeseeker to trinemate. "Not until I know what you're going on about." he narrowed his optics slightly. thundercracker grinned and skywarp put in "thundercracker wants to spank you." P
"Bwahahaha!"

Jade burst out into laughter. When starscream's look of shock dissolved into one of scandalized annoyance, jade just grinned. "I couldn't have said it better myself. But I still gotta go. I'll see you guys later." She waved and then was gone.

Starscream looked at Thundercracker.

Skywarp looked at thundercracker and grinned.

Thundercracker gulped.

Jade radioed Omega "Hey O, I'm headed in to base, see you there?"

"Oh hey Jade, I must have missed you." Omegafighter's voice came back over the radio. "Yeah, I was over on top of the cloudline." after a moment she added "See you in the rec room at seven? tonight's movie night."

"Oh, I wouldn't miss it for the world. By the way, tell my sis I wanna see Talladega nights again!" Jade sighed. "Yeah, sure. You know what she's gonna say though." There was a smile in that reply. "Yeah yeah, I know. I'm an aft head, blah blah blah." he chuckled. "Just so long as she doesn't use her psychic powers to slide you UP a wall. Prime gets pretty miffed when we start breaking the furniture."

"Heh, yeah. And no problem, I can wrestle sis and pin her before she can do that." came the confident reply. Jade wasn't sure how to reply to that, so she decided to stay out of it. "Uh yeah... I'll give her your message. See ya later, I'm almost home."

"Later Jade!" and she clicked off the commline, landing in front of the Ark.

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Jade didn't stay through the movie, but instead decided to head back to her quarters. She'd seen the movie about a dozen times allready, and had an early shift in the morning.

Unfortunately, it was not the alarm clock that woke her up. The Ark's intruder alarms were blaring. Somewhere down the hall, she could hear shouting. She went to the door and almost yelled for them to "Keep it the frag down!" until she saw what was going on.

That wasn't just the intruder alarm, it was a fire alarm. Inferno could be made out through the blaze and thick smoke rolling out of...

Jade gasped as she realised that was somebody's *quarters*! and it was on fire! no, scratch that, it was... well, an inferno. She mentally smacked herself as curiosity led her closer. Ironhide yelled something over the roar of the flames. "Prime, can ya hear me!" She took a step back. This wasn't just anyone's quarters. It was Optimus Prime's quarters. And it looked for all the world like it was intentional. The jet just stood there, slack-jawed before sirens pulled her back to the present.

Ratchet pulled up and transformed, swearing all the way. "What the mutherfraggin hell made you wake me up int htis primus-forsaken pit-depths of the morn-" his rant cut off part way, and he went straight into "medic mode". "Move it! get out of the way! Move!" he shoved his way through the forming crowd and into the smoke.

Thankfully, the flames had died down from the doorway. Inferno had edged inside. Trailbreaker appearing from down the hall to run up and help smother the flames with his forcefield. Closer to the door, Brawn, Bumblebee, and Huffer were all talking in hushed whiuspers. A long moment passed, then another. Then, finally after some coughing a sputtering. Ratchet reappeared with Prime, one arm slung over the ambulance-mech's shoulder to help the Autobot leader out into the hallway. "Move, get back!" Ironhide and Sideswipe shooed the other mechs away so Ratchet Could have the space let Prime to sit on the floor and look him over.

He was blackened from the smoke and soot, and part of his leg armor had been melted. One headlight had broken and partially melted from the heat. And Jade tried not to stare at his arm where the exostructure had been melted. "I can...I can see his struts and tubing... that has to hurt!" she thought. She glanced up and saw Prowl coming from down the hall.

"Please move. Move, please, out of my way." He got over to where the two were seated "Is Prime okay?" he asked. Jade couldn't hear much more from the rising din of conversation, since Sunstreaker, Tracks, and Hound had shown up now as well. It seemed half the Ark had turned up to see what the alarms were all about. "I'm... fine, thank you Prowl." Prime coughed and Ratchet helped him to his feet. "Come on Prime, let's get you to the repairbay and see what needs repaired." He glanced at Prowl, who simply nodded.

Trailbreaker and Inferno reappeared. "The fire's out." inferno reported. "But there's something suspicious about it."

"Ya think?" Cliffjumper snarked. But he got several glares and mutterings for it. Prowl stepped forward. "Why do you say "suspicious?"

"'Cause." Inferno glanced back at the now-blackened room. Jade leaned over to get a glance in. What had been the couch, a chair, the entire living room area had been prettymcuh destroyed, the walls and ceiling were all covered with patches of black soot, bare metal where the wallpaper had peeled away or melted, and charred partial-skeletons of furniture remained. She looked back at the "fire investigators".

Inferno glanced into the room, then shut the door locking it. "It looks for all the world like it was torched. I think we may have an arson on our hands."

Cliffjumper put in with "A Decepticon, no doubt." Prowl nodded. "There was a proximity alarm, but I spoke with Red Alert on my way here. He did not get any alarms from any of the hallways. Nor did he get any Decepticon signature readings from the ventwork network we had set up." Prowl glanced at Jade.

As soon as Prowl looked away again, Jade got a very bad feeling. One that strangely enough she never got unless she had done something wrong and wasn't "busted" for yet. Call it a sixth sense, but she had allways had it. She wondered why it was surfacing now. She shook the thought out of her head. Prowl continued. "Red Alert said he would be here in a few minutes to make sure the door to Prime's quarters are sealed so nobody can tamper with the evidence. Inferno nodded and Trailbreaker asked "What about the ventilation?"

"We will undoubtedly have to close and lock the containment seals in that area of the shafts." again he glanced at Jade. She had been the one to suggest such a thing, so they could more easily track and catch infiltrating casseticons. She had put up that sensor network herself, so why was she getting an almost guilty feeling now? "Maybe it was because my precious little system failed." she told herself.

She wandered away, back towards her quarters, wondering if she sould go see if Prime was okay (and get yelled at by Ratchet), or just wait till morning. She plodded into her quarters and sat down on the couch, plopping her face into her hands and rubbing. She was tired. She suddenly noticed when she took her hands away that they were sooty grey. She blinked and wondered why. going over to a nearby mirror, she could see where she had accidentally smerared it onto her face. She sighed and got a washrag, wiping it off. She forgot she'd leaned into the doorway of Prime's quarters to get a look. "I really need to stop doing stpid things while sleepy." she tripped and stumbled up the stairs to the balcony, turned human, and promptly collapsed onto the couch, falling fast asleep.

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End Notes: wow. Just... wow. Tht started out totally completely.. really ramdom, and solidified into... this!

I'm kind of glad it did. It's something I've been headficcing about recently (daydreaming. Yah. You call it daydreaming, I call it headficcing. lol.) It needs some filling out and undoubtedly needs proofread.

Also, I didn't really get to accurately describe Prime's injuries. Let's just say someone lit his quarters up like the proverbial fireworks factory. uhm.. I mean like an inferno. His armor was melted in several places... Think person with third degree burns/clothing melted onto them hot. It actually melted his exostructure (skin) in a couple places.

Ooooooh, this is going to be fun figuring out whodunnit! *rubs hands together in gleeful anticipation*
Stay tuned for more!

Also, please review! thanks!