Chapter Four

AN: Guess what, I survived the presentation, and didn't break down in tears. Yay. I may have been frozen on the spot for a few seconds, and was shaking like Rumble was just behind me afterwards, but I got through it and possibly failed.

So here's a big one for ya.

-:-

Sideswipe had to admit, Crystal's oldest younger brother was an expert at the human game hide and seek. The first round, Scott had to come out. The second round had been David searching, so the other three made it easier for him. Then back to Sideswipe, who had underestimated the four year old.

The mech had found Peter and David, and Scott was still nowhere to be found. Sideswipe had to admit, it was easier using his holoform than using his actual body, but then again, he wasn't allowed to use his actual body. He had searched behind everyone who was in the room at the time, had searched under tables, behind chairs, and had still come up empty handed.

Nor was he near any of the machinery, on an observation deck above or trying to blend in with all of the people on the ground surrounding Crystal.

Just as Sideswipe was about to call it a draw, he noticed Prowl's alt mode move forward about five feet, exposing a fourteen year old lying flat on his stomach. Smirking, Sideswipe walked over to the teen before he could realize his cover had moved.

"So, Scott, I wouldn't stay under there for too long. Don't know where Prowler's been," Sideswipe said, causing the teen to curse before he noticed that he could just sit up. He knew that he would get in trouble for making that comment about the second in command, but how else would he go about getting Scott out of there.

Laughing, the two of them plus David hid once more as it was Peter's turn to seek them out.

-:-

A few hours had passed since the family had arrived at the base, and Crystal was still in the dark as to why they were there. What in the world could the US military want with her, a simple person who did nothing out of the ordinary and generally refused to talk to strangers.

Most of the things that were being talked about around her went over her head, as she didn't understand one bit of it. She kept looking behind her, watching her brothers playing with someone, though she wasn't exactly sure who it was. That set her on edge; not so much for Scott, but definitely for Peter and David.

Sure, the person was one of the people who had taken them from Canada, but she knew nothing about them. They seemed to know what they were doing, taking it easier when it was David's turn to seek, but she also knew that David was abnormal in the sense where he was more mature than others his age. He had an excellent vocabulary, great sentence structure, and the only word he mispronounced was 'hamburger', saying it like 'hangerber' instead.

After a few more rotations in turns, it was again David seeking. Seeing that her parents were busy talking with the man who had traveled with them, and no one was actually watching him, she turned her complete attention to David.

Watching him search around for the others, who had learned from the last time not to take it too easy with the little one, she noticed that Peter had stolen Scott's idea from a few turns ago and was hiding under the police car Scott had earlier.

Laughing to herself, she continued to watch David until he had gained too much speed from running and toppled over himself, landing on the floor.

The moment Crystal had seen David start to fall, she began to run to him, pushing a few people out of her way to get to her youngest brother. She ran as fast as she could, something she enjoyed doing from time to time, to her brother, who looked as though he may cry.

When Crystal got near him, she dug her heels to slow down her speed and immediately sat on the floor beside David while pulling him onto her lap. Hugging him tight, she rested her cheek on the top of his head and put some of her hair into his hand, letting him pull on it.

Sideswipe got up from his hiding spot and watched as Crystal comforted her youngest brother. When he saw this, he wasn't sure why but it seemed more parent like than sister like; as was when she was watching him earlier.

Had she been a parent before? It seemed unlikely given her age, but he had observed ones younger than her bearing children on the internet, as earth's data net was called. Intrigued, he went to approach and ask her, but was hesitant the moment he saw Ratchet's holoform approaching.

It appeared that he and Crystal were having a quiet argument. Ratchet was saying that the sparkling was fine, but Crystal arguing that her brother wasn't fine; physically, maybe, but she pointed out that being comforted was an important thing in a child's mind. She even held her arms out to show Ratchet that David didn't want to go anywhere.

The medic just grumbled before stalking off, muttering something about humans being an annoyingly stubborn species.

Sideswipe watched Crystal comfort David some more before standing up with him and positioning him on her hip to carry him around. The mech was noticing many similarities between her and a carrier's behavior back on Cybertron. It was unfortunate for him that he was too deep in thought to notice the teen approaching his holoform, rather quickly for someone who was carrying a child on her hip.

"So, what's your name?" she asked suddenly, getting Sideswipe's attention. Without thinking, Sideswipe said his actual name, without even thinking of how it was strange for humans. "I meant your actual name, not your nickname. Sunny told me that."

"Did he now?" Sideswipe looked at his twin's alt form; the fragger was probably just resting there, not even using his holoform. "Well, if you want to get on his nerves, he hates the name Sunshine."

Crystal raised an eyebrow. "Why would I want to annoy him? He let me ride in his car, which is probably a hundred times better than that silver one that was there that day too."

Sideswipe adopted a very hurt expression. "Hey, that's me-" he realized his mistake before elongating the 'e' into an 'I' "-ine."

The teen gave him a look of disbelief before shrugging it off. She looked down at David. "Thank you for keeping my brothers entertained, though I was a bit worried at first."

The mech was about to say something before he saw Optimus Prime's holoform approaching. He looked his leader in the eyes before returning his attention to Crystal.

The Prime had noticed that the Autobots were growing restless sitting in their alt modes, as well as the late time of the day. "Colonel Lennox has arranged a room for your family to stay in for this night, until two more can be arranged."

Crystal nodded, walking over to her parents, where her other brothers were standing there waiting.

Lennox stood off to the side, watching the teen girl walk over with her brother on her hip, carrying him without any strain what so ever. It bothered him more than it should have, but he couldn't do anything about it.

He turned to lead the family to their shared room when he saw something he knew would happen sooner later after listen to Nova's reports. The children's stepmother, Mary Ann, stood a few feet from Scott, yelling at him for some reason unknown to Lennox.

He then noticed Crystal putting David down beside Peter before standing in front of Scott to defend her brother. Lennox watched as Mary Ann slapped Crystal across the face, causing the teen to stumble to the side.

Before the Colonel could react, he noticed that two of the Autobots had positioned their holoforms in front of Scott, crossing their arms. He looked at them, realizing that it was Sideswipe and surprisingly, Sunstreaker. The twins stood there, staring at the stepmother, Sunstreaker feeling the rage coming from his twin.

Lennox had stepped in to intervene while the twins walked off, watching Prowl's holoform stand beside the teen as he helped her steady herself. The Autobot's second in command sent a cold glance at the woman who had stuck the teen, though did nothing as Lennox was handling it.

-:-

Crystal looked around, tears rolling down her cheeks. The person who had helped her regain her balance was sitting opposite her in an office of some sort. After taking in her surroundings, she looked at her hands in her lap, refusing to look anywhere else.

The person sitting opposite her had his head in his hand, with his elbow resting on the desk. Question after question he asked her, but he got the same response every time; Crystal would shake her head defiantly and keep her gaze in her lap.

After a while, she had regained control of her emotions enough to look Prowl in the eye, she wished she hadn't. His gaze was calculating and somewhat cold, making her shrink back and look down again.

Prowl, noticing this, lessened his gaze and once again asked questions about her life, which was starting to annoy Crystal, but the teen would rather be dead before she spoke up. Looking at the girl, he decided a different approach.

Reaching into the desk and withdrawing a few pens and some paper, he pushed the items towards Crystal. "If you won't speak with me, then write it down," he said, crossing his holoform's arms against his chest.

Crystal reached for the paper and a pen cautiously before setting it in front of her, the paper twisted at a forty five degree angle for some strange reason. Holding the pen in her right hand, she looked at the ceiling for a moment before hunching over the paper, her hair falling around it, making it impossible for Prowl to read what was on the paper.

Prowl sat back, watching the teen write on the paper, sometimes stopping to write on the side of the page, before continuing again. He was counting the minutes it was taking for the girl to write what she was supposed to be saying.

As much as it would have been easier for the teen to just answer verbally, he knew that some people, and mechs, had problems relaying information through speech. It seemed inefficient at best, and a waste of time, but if it got him answers, he would accept it.

Occasionally, Crystal would glance up through her hair, trying to figure out the person before her. It was hard for her, as his eyes wouldn't give away, and he held a straight face as well as the best poker players she had observed. She smiled for a second, before continuing on writing.

Ten minutes passed, and Crystal was finally done. She pushed the paper towards Prowl, who leaned forward ever so slightly to block the overhead light from the page. He sat, reading it, with as much expression as he held before, which frustrated Crystal; she couldn't figure him out at all.

Prowl looked up at Crystal for a moment, before addressing her. "So, is this only the items you wish to tell me, or is the entire story?"

To his surprise, Crystal snorted, having worked up the courage to speak. "If you wanted my life's story, I'd write a novel and actually get published; I've had a different life, I guess. I mean, my family has the luck of if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. Especially medical wise. Like I said, I could write a book."

The teen leaned forward slightly, trying to see if she got a reaction at all; nothing. Prowl was only half listening, the other half was trying to figure out where to put her and her siblings for the night. After the display of affection, and lack thereof, he had decided that the group would be split into two; Crystal and the oldest two brothers would share a room for now, and the two adults and the youngest would share another room.

Except one problem presented itself; they only had one room actually prepared. Prowl rose from his seat, nodding for Crystal to stand as well. "Follow," was all he said before he led the way to the med bay, where Ratchet had said to bring Crystal after he was done.

The medic still wanted to ask the girl some questions, and it would give him time to figure out where to put the siblings.

-:-

"And are you sure you haven't had any pain in your chest or back?" Ratchet asked, still using his holoform.

Crystal was now crossing her arms, "No, I haven't, except if you count carrying around a four year old. And whenever I've been walking for over an hour. Can I ask why all the questions?"

Ratchet's holoform grit its teeth together. "I need to find the source of the signal that's coming from you," he said in an almost pained voice.

"What signal? Am I giving out like a radio signal?"

"Will you be quiet while I try to work?"

Crystal fell silent, drawing her knees up to her chest and hugging them close. She buried her face in them and just stared at the darkness, wanting it to swallow her up. This whole situation felt weird; she was in a different country, she knew no one but her family around her, aside from Sunny and Sideswipe, sort of, and now she found out she was giving off a signal, though she had no idea what kind of signal.

It felt worse than any of the medieval events she had attended in the past. While she didn't know anyone at those, everyone kept an eye on everyone and people were always nice, open hearted and helpful. Here she knew no one and almost everyone had a cold stare.

Right, she reminded herself, I'm at a military base. Why am I complaining? She looked around at her surroundings in the med bay; nothing seemed out of place or messed up in any way, shape or form.

As she watched Ratchet's back work on something, she looked at the door; it seemed so inviting, she crept as quietly as she could to the door before opening it. Trying as hard as she could to not make a noise, she slipped through when the crack was large enough and didn't bother closing it.

Once outside the room, she started to walk forward, remembering what way she had come from. She traced her way back to the office she had been in earlier, but soon after leaving that area, she became lost when she couldn't remember which way had she come from. Going with her gut instinct, she turned right and hoped for the best.

-:-

Once all of the humans had been cleared out of the main room that didn't know about the Autobots, Optimus gave them permission to change into their bipedal mode. He was the first one to transform and stretch out his sore limbs.

Once everyone had changed, Prowl walked over to Optimus and began talking, while the twins were talking with Chromia, Ironhide and Nova, who was trying her best not to laugh while Ironhide was being talked out of attacking the twins by Chromia. Everyone was busy, not really paying attention to the doorway when someone walked in.

Optimus and Prowl were having a lengthy discussion about how long they were planning on keeping Crystal, when they heard a young voice say "robot". Both looked down and were surprised to see David standing five feet from them, nearly falling over trying to look at their helms.

Raising an eyebrow, Optimus picked up David and walked him over to the entrance which he thought he came. He was hoping that should the young one tell, that it would be passed off as a child's imagination. He set him on the ground and ever so gently nudged him to walk forward.

However, David was about to run back when a very sharp voice said his name. Crystal walked in, her vision homed in on her brother. "David. What are you doing here with no one watching? You could get hurt or worse."

She stalked over and picked up her brother, placing him on her hip like before. She was about to walk out of the room when Sideswipe spoke up, drawing her attention.

"Crystal, robots," David said, leaning in her grasps.

The teen rolled her eyes. "What, is Sideswipe playing with robots?" she asked before turning around. She first saw nothing, but then noticed that there were what appeared to be giant metal feet on the floor. Daring herself to look up, she took notice that there were several large, metal beings towering over her.

Blinking stupidly a few times, she went to back out of the room through the door but had miscalculated and hit the wall behind her instead. "Ro-ro-robots. Right, Davy. Giant ones," she said quietly, before one of them, Sideswipe, went to pick her up.

Freaking out, she attempted to run, but wasn't able to get very far because she was holding her brother. Feeling herself being lifted from the ground, she grabbed onto whatever had a hold of her while making sure she had a secure hold on David.

"This is just a bad dream. This is just a bad dream," Crystal kept on repeating as she and David were held about fifteen feet above the ground.

Sideswipe rolled his optics before walking over to Optimus, who took gave Sideswipe a look of disappointment; the Prime had wanted the situation to go over a bit different, with the humans not being picked up right away.

"Calm down, we're not going to hurt you. We're not Decepticons," Sideswipe said, before being smacked upside the helm by his twin.

"You're just going to freak them out more," Sunstreaker growled at Sideswipe.

"Is Sunshine getting a soft spot for the human?"

"At least she has better tastes than you," the gold twin said before stalking off to a corner.

Crystal looked up and saw a purple, female looking robot walk over to her. "Hey Crystal, it's me. You know, from your school."

The teen stared at the purple femme before her. "Noelle?"

"It's Nova, actually. But yeah, it's me," the femme said before holding out her hand for Crystal to climb over, but the teen didn't move.

"No offense, but I'm really scared of heights I guess. I think I'll stay here."

-:-

AN: Yay. Can I sleep now? I'm doing that weird eye twitch thing when one's eyes are too tired to stay open. Or am I the only one who does that?

Well, I know this story is being read, thank you everyone. But maybe more reviews? I know my brother promised one, but even he hasn't done that. But that's okay. I can handle that. Loving the faves and alerts though. Thanks guys.

Sky, over and out.