=In the same clearing=

Jazz POV

Rewind brought Blaster and I to the rest of our cassettes. I sat near Stalker, and the others crowded around Blaster.

The young feline pressed his head into my hand. He delicately raised one claw and traced the glyphs for patience, and reward. The black cat, why earthlings thought of them as bad luck I would never understand, climbed half on my lap, as he wouldn't fit wholly. He closed his cat-eyes and slid his head against my thigh. He purred, and if I'd still had an engine, I would've revved it. As it was, I hummed contentedly and stroked the cat behind its ears until even those in the happy cassette pile heard enough to take notice.

"Stalker?" Blaster was the first to regain his vocalizer. Nightstalker turned towards him, I assumed he was giving Blaster the 'Sides look'. You know, that look you make when someone confronts you on something you did, and you know you did it, and you know he knows you did it, but you still give him that look that says 'What? Do you really think I would do that?' But also screams 'I /so/ did that and you couldn't stop me'. Also, his posture suggested there's a hint of 'Can I keep it?' I slipped a finger under his head, rubbing the under line of the large cat's jaw. The sleek cat shivered, instantly turning his head to me. He traced another glyph on my leg. 'Peace'. "Fine."

"Yeah, whatever. Steelie still loves me, right?" Steeljaw gave Blaster a teasing look, 'you're kidding me, right?', then goes over to curl up by me.

"Well..." I drawled, "Ah've got half your cassettes. Ah wonder if Ah can get the others..." I rummaged through my pockets, taking a few precious moments to pull out a few caramel candies. I unwrapped two and gave them to the cats in my lap. I put another four in my open palm toward the others. At their hesitation, I ate one myself. "Mm. Tastes almost like energon goodies..." At this the bipedal cassettes looked from Blaster to my hand and back.

"Fine, go to Jazz. It doesn't matter to me." Blaster faked tears for his little ones. When his cassettes ran to me, Blaster turned away and sighed. "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna eat some worms."

The twins grabbed all three still in my hand. Rewind unwrapped the extra, saying, "Why eat worms Carrier? When you can eat this!" Eject barreled Blaster over, and when he gasped for air, Rewind shoved the candy in his mouth. Rewind held his hand over Blaster's mouth so he couldn't spit it out. He gagged on it, trying to get air.

"Suck on it. Savor it. And breathe through your olfactory sensors." I suggested. His gasping chokes changed to small, interested, pleasurable noises as he obeyed.

"Mm. Mm. That's really good, Jazz, did you make these?"

"Originally, Ah believe they were the homemade energon goodies in mah subspace, but it looks like they turned to human food when we became organic."

"Oh..."

"Yeah. Now, let's go find Prime and the others." Blaster nodded his approval, still mostly hidden under his two cassettes.

oOoOo

Steelie's POV

All six of us squeezed into Jazz's car. It was white, and black Cybertronian glyphs spelled 'Special Ops' on one side and 'Music is My Middle Name' on the other. Jazz drove, Blaster sat up front with Stalker in his lap, and that left Rewind, Eject, and me for the back seat. I curled up in the middle, the twins on either side of me, and took a nap.

= in the car =

Jazz POV

Let's just say it's a heck of a lot harder to drive a car than to drive myself, and leave it at that. At least I knew traffic laws. Blaster sat up front and laughed at my efforts. The twins sat in back and played a human game, rock paper scissors, over Steeljaw. I like that game. It's generally quiet and keeps the troublemakers busy. About an hour in, Steelie tried to stretch out. He kicked both the twins in their heads, and nearly fell off the seat. "Woah, Steelie." Blaster held up his cassette. 'Distance' "Half or better. We should be at the coordinates in about an hour." Steeljaw settled back to wait.

When we got to Ratchet's coordinates, no one was there. That was expected. We went into the small cottage to wait for Ratchet