Author's note : This story is dedicated to anon_decepticon, who brainstormed and co-wrote "Crash Course" with me, inspired me with the idea for this follow-up, provided more helpful suggestions than I can count and edited it. I'm proud to know her as both a wonderful writer and a good friend.

Plus, it's her birthday. Here's to a happy day and a great year ahead, a_d!

Dear Mr. Prowl…

Since Red Alert was the Security Director, mail was his responsibility. The real reason he'd ended up stuck with that task, though, was because no one else wanted it.

The Autobots received vast quantities of mail—some wanted, most not. Even opening letters and packages wasn't something they could do easily, given how tiny those were. Red Alert had once told Spike and Carly that they could have the most fun job on the Ark and then shown them the crammed mail room, but after they had both stopped snickering they had politely declined. Red Alert had then questioned various high schools on whether their students would be interested in performing some important community service, but apparently none of them were permitted aboard the Ark—something about "security concerns" was quoted, much to his annoyance.

So Red Alert set up a schedule for any Autobots unfortunate enough to be lower-ranking and/or on punishment duty. After separating the steel from the slag—in other words, the real mail from the junk—those Autobots then had to use a specially-constructed letter-knife (designed to fit over one fingertip) to open each envelope and unfold whatever was inside, using tweezers if necessary, before sending the now-opened letters to their respective addressees.

As Sunstreaker said once, it was enough to make you wish you were a Dinobot.

But the most memorable correspondence the Autobots received came when Bluestreak was on mail duty. He delivered a small stack of paper to Prowl at the end of his shift, and on top of it was a letter saying,

"Dear Mr. Prowl,

I was advised by the San Francisco Police Department to contact you regarding an incident which occurred about a week ago. The delicatessen I own was held up by a group of men who also stole the keys to my pickup. The police later informed me that my pickup was found on the I-80, and that the men who had stolen it were taken into Autobot custody. Would you mind letting me know what will be done with them?

Thank you,

Valerie D'Orsey"

Sighing inwardly, Prowl composed a reply at speed. It was probably best, he thought, not to reveal that the gang had actually been Decepticons, doing in organic bodies just what they had always done in cybernetic ones. This human had clearly been through enough already.

And there was certainly no need for him to mention any of the havoc the Stunticons had wreaked in the Ark afterward, so that made for a very short letter.

"Dear Sir/Madam,

The criminals who stole your pickup are no longer in our custody, but you may rest assured that you will not see them again. Robbery is among the least of their crimes, so if they did you no further harm, consider yourself fortunate.

Thank you for writing to the Autobots.

Prowl"

Seated at her desk, Val carefully slit open the envelope with the red sigil printed on its upper left-hand corner. She paused to take a sip of hot chocolate and a deep breath. Not only was it the first time she'd received mail from the Autobots but she was about to learn what had happened to the bastard who'd slept with her and then robbed her.

She read the reply, read it a second time to make sure she hadn't missed anything, turned the sheet of paper over and then looked inside the envelope.

That's it? She'd hoped to find out a little more—like who Tom and his friends actually were, and what had happened to them. But not only did Prowl seem very close-mouthed, his reply didn't make much sense either. Why had Tom and his friends been in Autobot custody for so little time? Had the Autobots handed them over to someone else?

Her shock at the robbery had faded halfway through the experience, leaving her furious instead. She'd fed and listened to and helped not just Tom, but his friend as well, the one in the bright yellow coat, and yet Tom had taken her pickup while his friend had suggested robbing her.

And Tom had gone along with that, taking her hard-earned money without even looking at her as he did so. As if he didn't even remember saving her when a robber had tried to do the same thing, as if they'd been strangers rather than…

Val's face still felt hot when she thought of how she'd kissed him. She'd hoped he would want more after that, and he had. It had been strangely exciting to sit across a table from a man like him, clearly an ex-military type who could take out an armed criminal with his bare hands, and know that she was his first. Plus, he'd wanted her despite the fact that he seemed to belong to an elite but monkish military unit which didn't allow association with women.

Val couldn't think of any branch of the US military—or even weird fringe militia groups—that had that kind of prohibition. Just another of the many odd things about Tom, but he had some good qualities too. Like the fact that he was bigger and taller than she was—not many men were—and he looked as though he could pick her up without throwing his back out.

He was utterly fearless, too. Unarmed, he'd faced a man with a shotgun in her deli, but the tables had turned with frightening speed, and before she knew it the robber had been literally thrown out of the place. Val had never known anyone like that, and she was all the more attracted because his aggressive take-charge attitude retreated to the background when they got intimate.

So she'd flirted and fantasized, until it had all gone down in flames, leaving her with nothing but a wrecked pickup and broken hopes.

She was so ashamed she couldn't tell any of her friends, with the exception of Jess, who'd offered Tom a job on Val's recommendation and had then fired him for not showing up to work. Naturally, Jess despised him. "You're better off without him," was all she would say, and Val had to agree.

But she was still very curious about what had happened to him, and why the Autobots wouldn't tell her.

Unless they did? Was there a subtle message in Prowl's comment that she would never see Tom or his friends again?

Val frowned. Were they in jail? Could they be dead?

Her anger and embarrassment ebbed, replaced by worry. Had the Autobots turned them over to their military unit, which had then punished Tom for socializing with a woman?

Not just him, and not just with a woman. She remembered the other guy—wish I knew their names—who'd been attacked by the loan shark's thugs, and who had come to her deli with a boyfriend after he'd recovered. They made a cute couple, but what if the taboo on dating had been in effect even though Tom and his friends were trying to pass for civilians for a while, and they'd gotten into trouble for it?

They were in trouble, she thought, remembering a headline she'd seen in the paper that day. It hadn't really made an impact on her at the time, because she'd been preoccupied with the robbery, but now she found the recycling box and retrieved the paper. According to the article, four men in a dark green Ford pickup had led police on a high-speed chase across the Bay Bridge, but then the Decepticons had shouldered their way into the pursuit.

Val looked at the pictures of a tank and a helicopter. Military vehicles. Did Tom's military unit have any connection with them? If Tom and his friends had gone rogue to the extent of living like civilians and sleeping with women (or men), could his infuriated superiors have betrayed them to the Decepticons?

What if that was what happened? She remembered the other guy, the one who'd once followed her home, saying they needed the money more than she did. Tom had clearly been caught between a rock and a hard place – he hadn't even been able to meet her eyes when he'd taken it. He'd been desperate.

Anyone would be, with Decepticons after them. Maybe they hadn't so much stolen her pickup as commandeered it, and according to the article, the chase had begin very shortly after the robbery. There really hadn't been time for Tom to explain anything to her.

Maybe she was being too hard on him?

Val cut the article out neatly and then started another letter.

"Dear Mr. Prowl,

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate your taking the time to contact me.

However, I remain concerned about what has happened to Mr. Morter and his friends, one of whom was a regular customer of mine. You may also want to be aware that Mr. Morter once halted an attempted robbery in my delicatessen, which is how I came to be acquainted with him. I realize this may seem strange in light of the fact that he later went on to rob me himself, but I hope you can understand why I am interested in finding out more about who he is and more importantly, where he is at the moment.

Thank you again for your time,

Valerie D'Orsey

P.S. I am female."

"Well, that explains it," Jazz said.

"I beg your pardon?" Prowl looked up at him.

There was a faint click behind Jazz's visor as he deactivated the zoom function and straightened up from where he'd been leaning against Prowl's desk, reading the letter on it. "She's female. Must've fallen for the guy."

"For Motormaster?"

"She didn't know it was Motormaster. You wanna tell her?"

"No," Prowl said flatly. "The last thing we need is panic spreading as humans realize the Stunticons were living in their midst. That's the kind of information which Optimus needs to share with the human authorities on a controlled, need-to-know basis. We can't be mailing it out to any persistent letter-writer who contacts us."

"Guess I can't argue with that," Jazz said. "So, gonna write back?"

"I suppose so." Feeling a marked lack of enthusiasm, Prowl typed "Dear Miss/Mrs/Ms D'Orsey" on his terminal, then looked up at Jazz again. He didn't normally allow anyone to use his computer or have access to his office when he wasn't in it, but for all Jazz's faults, he was responsible with other Autobots' belongings.

"Unless you want to do it?" he said hopefully. "I have a patrol observation due in a few breem…"

The last thing Prowl heard before he left his office was the machine-gun chatter of Jazz typing away rapidly.

"Dear Miss/Mrs/Ms D'Orsey,

Listen, you want to forget about that guy. Him and his friends were bad news all around. If you knew who they were, you'd be scared out of your skin. Trust me on that.

Plus, he was mighty ugly.

It's real sweet that you're worried about him and all, but that's wasted on dudes like Morter (and that ain't even his real name). He'd just have used you for anything he could get out of you. You deserve better than that. Hey, knowing him, you're lucky he didn't beat you up or something.

I'm kinda curious, though—what all did he tell you about himself? Must've been one heck of a story.

Talk to ya later!

Jazz

P.S. Oh yeah, thank you for writing to the Autobots."

The next letter arrived three days later.

"Dear Mr. Prowl,

I don't know who answered the most recent letter I addressed to you (a copy of the reply I received is enclosed for your perusal), but I did not find it either helpful or courteous.

I have been wondering for some time why the Autobots are so secretive on the subject of Mr. Morter, but dropping hints to me (e.g. that this is not his real name) is not what I'd consider an improvement. Is there some legitimate reason why you are unable or unwilling to discuss the subject of Mr. Morter and his colleagues, and what happened to them after they were taken into your custody?

Thank you,

Ms. Valerie D'Orsey

P.S. If there is an ongoing issue about your mail being answered by others, please feel free to phone me instead. My home number is 415-621-3383."

The phone rang.

Val had been watching TV and she reached for the receiver without taking her eyes off the screen. "Hello?"

"Ms. Valerie D'Orsey?" a voice said.

Val frowned. It was a male voice, but oddly toned and resonating, with a slightly harsh edge. "Yes?" she said, pressing the mute button on the remote control.

"This is Red Alert, Security Director of the Autobots."

"Oh." Val sat up straighter on the couch. Including her phone number in her latest letter to Prowl had been her way of saying, see, I have nothing to hide, but she hadn't expected them to actually use it. "Uh, I wrote to Prowl—"

"Prowl has better things to do with his time," Red Alert said. "And so do I, so I'll make this brief. The St—I mean, Mr. Morter and his troops were taken into the Ark and given protective custody because the Decepticons would have killed them otherwise."

"Yes?" Val said again. She curled her legs beneath her and listened eagerly.

"They received food and medical attention, none of which they would have given us had our situations been reversed, I might add," Red Alert went on. "They were even permitted to use our communications equipment to contact, er, their immediate superior. But then they tricked us and sabotaged one of the Autobots to use as a getaway vehicle!"

"He did?" Val said. "I mean, they did?"

There was a pause. "Do you see nothing wrong about this?"

"Absolutely. It's terrible. But please go on. Did they escape?"

This time the pause was significantly longer. "Is this call being recorded?" Red Alert said finally.

"No." Val wished she had thought of doing so.

"Very well." He sounded as though he was speaking through set teeth, or whatever giant alien robots had that passed for teeth. "I hoped I would not have to resort to this, Ms. D'Orsey, but you leave me no choice."

What? Val felt nervous for the first time; was he planning to do something to her? She held the receiver away from her ear and looked at it, wondering if he could send some kind of mind-control ray down the telephone wire. No, Autobots wouldn't do that… would they?

"Please keep this to yourself," she heard Red Alert say, and she put the phone to her ear again. "The men you encountered were not human."

"Okay…" Val said, in an I'm-waiting-for-the-punchline tone.

"They were actually Decepticons. Their leader, the one you knew as Mr. Morter? His real designation is Motormaster, and he is one of Megatron's most brutal and fanatical warriors."

"Really."

There was a sharp hiss-snap of static on the line. "You don't believe me?"

"Of course not," Val said. "In fact, I find this all very suspicious. Tom… I mean, Mr. Morter and his friends were taken away by the Autobots, but after that the police apparently have no further information about them and Prowl informed me that I'll never see them again. I wonder what really happened."

Silence.

"Still, it's convenient that the Autobots now claim these men are—or should I say were?—robots. I mean, if they were human, the police might take an interest in their disappearance, but since you say they're robots, no one has to account for them. It's weird, though… they looked human enough to me, and I never saw a single one of them transform."

"There is absolutely no evidence for what you're implying," Red Alert said tightly. "Goodbye."

"Is there any evidence for what you're claiming?" Val said, but he had already cut the connection.

"Dear Mr. Prowl,

You may want to be aware that someone calling himself 'Red Alert' and claiming to be the Autobot Security Director telephoned me yesterday to inform me that Mr. Morter and his four colleagues were actually Decepticons.

I found this story most unconvincing, not to mention bizarre, and I remain concerned about Mr. Morter's well-being and whereabouts. I thought I should inform you of this in case it was some elaborate trick intended to discredit the Autobots.

Thank you,

Ms. Valerie D'Orsey"

"Hey you,

Stop writing to us, OK? Please, just stop. Prowl's making me and Sunstreaker answer all his junk mail when we're supposed to be off-duty—what the frag, Prowl? And it's really annoying. If you want to write to someone, try this guy:

Motormaster

c/o the Decepticons

The Nemesis

Then stick it in a ziploc baggie with a rock and throw it in the Pacific Ocean.

Sideswipe"

"Dear Mr. Prowl,

Enclosed please find a complete copy of the information I intend to send to the head offices of twenty major national newspapers as soon as possible.

It includes a report of my acquaintance with Mr. Morter and copies of my correspondence with you or with those you have delegated to reply to me (the transcription of my conversation with 'Red Alert' is as accurate as possible under the circumstances). Perhaps that will be enough to raise interest in the fate of Mr. Morter and his colleagues. At best, they may come to learn that someone who knew them in their civilian lives has not forgotten them.

I am not aware of the Autobots' priorities in this matter, but my foremost concern remains the safety of people who seem to have been seriously endangered by the Decepticons—and who inexplicably disappeared after they were taken into Autobot custody. That, and the truth.

Thank you,

Ms. Valerie D'Orsey"

The thin oblong package was delivered by special courier very early the next morning. After she had woken up enough to sign for it and to make coffee, Val opened the package. Some photographs fell into her lap, followed by a letter.

"Dear Ms. D'Orsey,

I'm writing to you because it's part of my punishment detail for letting the Stunticons escape. I didn't know they were Stunticons at the time, but Prowl said we need to think before acting, or at least check with someone who's used to thinking. I asked if he meant Silverbolt, but I have a feeling that was wrong too.

Anyway, the Decepticons built a machine which turned mechs into humans. I don't know why they decided to test it on the Stunticons, but it looks like they did—and then the Stunticons got away from them somehow. If I were little and human, I'd want to be far away from the cons too. Skydive says it's likely Megatron hadn't perfected reversing the process, so the Stunticons thought they'd be safer hiding out in San Francisco until he did, and knowing Skydive he's probably right.

So those were the five guys you met. I've enclosed some pictures I took of them so you can see what they looked like—as robots, anyway. As humans, I couldn't tell any of them apart, but from what I heard, Motormaster had a Decepticon symbol on his arm. Red Alert said I should have noticed that because I'm supposed to be the recon specialist, even though we've never had to check humans for faction insignia before.

By the way, Motormaster is their leader and the one who transforms into a Kenworth truck. You don't need to worry about whether he's safe now. They got a little damaged while they were running away from the Combaticons—Slingshot's watched that footage five times now—but after that they sabotaged Inferno and drove him out of the Ark. Somehow they found out where Megatron was hiding and once they reached him he reversed the transformation so they became robots again. And Motormaster is one of the biggest 'cons I've ever seen. He can take care of himself and the rest of the Stunticons—they're a combiner team, like us. You pick on one Aerialbot and you get to deal with all the others as well, so I'm guessing they're OK.

Unless they meet us in battle. In which case, Air Raid says, Superion smash!

We didn't want to tell anyone about this until Prime had a chance to break the news to human authorities and let them decide how much of it to release. But we're letting you know, and Prowl says what you do with the information is up to you.

Thank you for writing to the Autobots.

Fireflight"

Val made herself a second cup of coffee, mostly to give her hands something to do while her mind ticked over. She was already wide awake by then, thinking about the longest and most detailed communiqué she'd received from the Autobots to date.

Reluctantly, she supposed the phone call from "Red Alert" had been genuine after all, since both that and Fireflight's letter referred to Tom as "Motormaster". Not that that meant anything. It could simply be his military codename, the way Tom Cruise's handle in Top Gun had been "Maverick".

But did he have a Decepticon symbol on his arm? Val had no idea, because he'd refused to take his shirt off. At the time, she'd taken it for endearing shyness, given that he had been a virgin, but now she let herself remember that encounter—and everything that had led up to it.

"Tom? You have done this before, right?"

"Of course not!"

He'd admitted he'd never been with a woman—and never even been kissed—but he'd done so openly, without any of the typical reactions she would have expected from a thirty-something red-blooded heterosexual male. Hell, she had felt embarrassed, believing she had discovered something he would rather not have anyone know, but he had seemed more offended than ashamed. She'd been too flustered at the time to notice it, but now she remembered.

A man who didn't know how to kiss wasn't likely to be aware of what happened after that, which might explain his unfamiliarity with condoms, but there were other things he hadn't known either. Like what resumes ought to contain, or what a donut was. Val supposed an elite but secretive paramilitary organization might want to keep its troops isolated from civilians, but Tom had behaved more like someone who'd never been exposed to people in general.

Then there was the way he'd sworn at his two roommates when they'd been gawking at him through the window—he'd told them to "get the frag" out of there. She wouldn't have recalled that word if Sideswipe hadn't used it as well. And when he'd talked about his other roommate being injured by the loan shark's thugs, he'd said "damaged"… just as Fireflight had done in his letter.

They weren't just roommates, though.

She'd guessed that early on, the moment he'd mentioned that the loan shark's thugs had beaten one of them up. The shark would have targeted anyone with a personal connection to the loan-defaulter, but he couldn't take it for granted that a roommate did. And when she'd brought that up, Tom's overly-defensive reaction had confirmed it. For a moment there, she'd actually been a little unnerved—the look in his eyes had reminded her of when he'd faced down the gun-toting robber.

He clearly valued his friends' safety, enough to keep them penned up in their apartment while he went out to make himself a more obvious target—though Val doubted they had taken well to that. Which was understandable, if they were all part of the same military unit – although the one in yellow had obviously never heard of camouflage.

He really seemed to like that coat, though. He'd even been wearing it on the day they'd robbed her, making them even more conspicuous during the chase that had followed.

And he was a Decepticon too? They all were?

If that were true, it would explain why Tom had told her he would never be able to go out with a woman again once they returned home, and why they were all so desperate to go back home in the first place. That really had been his last chance to fully experience humanity—or as Jess would have said, to Do It—except he hadn't been too clear on what It was, exactly.

Then again, if he'd been a giant alien robot for most of his life, physical intimacy would have been new to him. And if he hadn't been sure of what to do during sex, he sure as hell wouldn't have known what to say after it.

Besides, for all his faults, he hadn't strung her along or made any promises that he couldn't keep. He'd been honest with her—oblique, but honest. He was going back home, he would never even be able to talk to her once he did because communications would be monitored, and if he tried to keep up a relationship with any woman after that, it would end in death.

That sounded like a brutal, rigid military organization all right, just not a human one.

No wonder he'd wanted to make the most of his little remaining time in the flesh. He hadn't even wanted his roommates to know that he was spending time with a woman, which explained why he'd been so ticked off to see them gawking at him—and his other roommate, the really good-looking one, had been just as secretive when she'd seen him with his boyfriend. She wondered if the boyfriend had been dropped just as abruptly, but she doubted she would ever find out.

They hadn't even wanted each other to know they'd been breaking the rules. Tom had taken a huge risk to be with her.

Whether he really had been a Decepticon or not, maybe on some level he had cared about her and she hadn't been completely mistaken about him.

Val picked up the photos and looked through them. Most looked as though they had been taken from above and at an angle, and the first few were just various Decepticons who seemed engaged in battle with various Autobots. Am I supposed to recognize any of these? Clouds of dust or smoke—and in one case, a brilliant pink spatter—meant the robots were even less easy to make out.

The next picture showed a grey Ferrari which had been photographed as it smashed through a billboard saying "Drive Safely and Arrive Alive", and the one after it was of a bright yellow racecar which seemed to be leaping directly at the camera. Val studied it for a long moment, then decided the color was just a coincidence. Statistically speaking, enough photographs of different cars were bound to come up with a color that matched the one Tom's friend always seemed to wear. She set it aside and looked at the last three pictures.

The first was mostly empty except for the front fender of a white car, which seemed to be moving so fast it was a blur. The second was an overhead shot of a Porsche painted a red so deep that the Decepticon symbol on its hood was a little hard to make out—though the shadow of the jet falling over it didn't help either. Val thought that even when Decepticons transformed into vehicles that weren't war machines, they didn't look like anything she could or would drive. Too pretty, too impractical, too expensive. She picked up the last photograph.

A Kenworth truck filled it. The glass of its windows gleamed as violet as Tom's eyes had been, and the dark paint made the grille look even brighter in comparison. Smoke wreathed it, but did nothing to hide the size and power of the massive truck.

A truck she'd seen less than three weeks before, when the taxicab she'd been in was held up by a traffic jam—last in line, she remembered thinking, just my luck. She'd been looking at her watch when there had been a sound like thunder.

Half the cars in the next lane lurched forward in a crunch of twisted metal and smashed glass. People began screaming, though the ones who were silent terrified her more.

The taxi driver scrambled out, shouting at her to run, it was a Decepticon. For a moment Val thought of hiding on the floor of the cab; surely the Decepticon wouldn't notice her there. But then she glanced back through the rear windshield and saw the truck backing up, directly behind the lane she was in.

It was going to ram that lane too.

She flung the door open, though she didn't know where to go. To the left was a guardrail and to the right, the lane was still blocked by cars and corpses. The truck's horn sounded—a long, deep howl—as it charged forward, straight at the taxi.

She stumbled out and froze, blinded by the glare of headlights.

Then the headlights swung sharply to the left. A wave of scorching air, thick with the stench of diesel and hot rubber, hit her—but the huge black cab missed. It passed so close to her that she could have stretched out an arm and touched it, but the truck plunged through the guardrail, crushing steel bars as though they were plasticine, and accelerated away in a thick spray of dust.

It was the same truck as the one in the picture, the one Fireflight had called Motormaster, the leader of the Stunticons.

Tom...?

The photograph bent a little from the tightening in Val's fingers, but when she noticed that she let it go. She reached for her cup of coffee without looking. The liquid was lukewarm by then, but it made no difference. She sipped slowly, taking her time, and only when the cup was empty did she allow herself to go through the pictures again, one by one.

She studied them carefully, trying to see men in the machines—the one in yellow was clearly as flashy in one form as he'd been in the other, but the others were more difficult. Was the handsome gay one who usually wore red and black actually the Ferrari with the red windows or the shiny dark-red Porsche? And then there were the other two she'd never gotten a good look at.

In the end, though, she found herself returning to Tom's… Motormaster's… photograph. He really had been one of a kind, and for all his flaws—being a Decepticon was probably the least of those—she had enjoyed being with him. But she would never see him again, in any shape or form, and that was for the best.

For a moment, though, she imagined what might happen if she opened a gas station instead of a deli. He'd drive in, expecting free fill-ups. Full tank, diesel, no sugar.

She smiled. Then she glanced at the sunlight just beyond the lace curtains and got up to fix breakfast and get ready for work.

"Dear Mr. Prowl,

Please thank Fireflight for his honesty and kindness in addressing my concerns.

This is the last letter I will write to the Autobots.

Yours sincerely,

Ms. Valerie D'Orsey"