"Can we keep her?"

Those were the first words she heard as she awoke, now resting on a small plastic chair. It was long, so she figured it was more of a booth, like one that came from a restaurant. It was warm from her body laying on it, and there was what sounded like purring under her feet.

Carolyn lifted her head and brushed her wild, curly hair back out of her face with one hand. Her eyes and head hurt, mainly from yesterday but it wasn't anything major. With the thought of last night, she tried recalling if she remembered where she was brought, but nothing came to mind. And when she actually did look around her, she wasn't in any familiar surroundings. She was on the seat of a booth in a long forgotten diner, and a ginger and white kitten lay under her feet on the tiled ground. She turned to look out the window to her right, and met the beading eyes of several robots.

She let out a scream, falling off the booth and almost on the kitten, who yipped and shot up.

To her left were two humans, one an adult and the other still a child. Both were brunettes, and with similar facial features, she automatically associated the two as father and son.

Carolyn pinned her back against the end of the booth, still on her bottom.

"We won't hurt you!" the adult said, holding his hand out to help her up. She rejected it, instead, identifying a frying pan on the ground a few feet away. She scrambled out and snatched it, then held it out threateningly.

"This is who you brought back with you, Drift?" This was a new voice, coming from neither of the humans, but it caused her to freeze and lower the pan by a few inches. Her attention was drawn back to the window.

"Yes. She is in dire need of assistance from us."

That voice. She lifted to her feet, and was now able to see outside. The pan slipped out of her loose fingers, but she didn't move to collect it again. She simply gazed out at all the robots, and among them was the familiar black and orange robot that had saved her.

She snapped back to reality when the adult male reached out to her again, and she leaped back and away from him.

"She seems fine to me," the young boy said from the entrance of the diner, his arms crossing as if impatiently.

"What's your name?" the adult asked.

"Carolyn," she answered simply.

"Hi Carolyn. I'm Denny, and this is my son, Russell." The child offered a small smile when introduced. "You're in safe hands. What happened?"

"He killed them," she said, her voice cracking and eyes burning as all memories of last night came flooding back. Tears formed. "He destroyed everything. My home is gone. My family is gone."

Alarms cut her off as they started blaring suddenly, and Carolyn jumped.

"Autobots, Metalbreaker is back on our scanners." That came through some sort of radio, but the yellow robot reacted first.

"Start up the groundbridge," he commanded, then turned his attention to Drift. "Take her back somewhere she can stay. Somewhere safe."

"But Sir," a white robot on the end interrupted with a feminine voice. "She knows of our existence."

"We'll just have to hope she doesn't tell anyone." The yellow robot looked back at her, no emotion on his face, and Carolyn's blood ran cold. "Take her somewhere safe and meet us at the coordinates." He changed, as Drift did once, into a yellow sports car, and Carolyn dashed forward, past the two humans with her as she charged towards the sports car.

"Wait!" she cried. He transformed back into a robot, giving her a puzzled look. "I don't have anywhere to go."

"We can't just keep you locked up here," he said.

"And I can't go back out there without somewhere to go," she shot back, not missing a beat while she gestured to where Crown City stood. "Please, just let me stay. I won't mess anything up, I just have nowhere to go, and a huge robot is hunting me down." The yellow robot looked up at Drift for what felt like an eternity, though it was only a few racing heartbeats.

"I'm putting her under your watch since you brought her here," he muttered, glaring directly at Drift who still stood unwavering.

"Understood," was the only thing he said, expressionlessly. The smaller robots under him, both black and red and sharing similar forms, fist pumped in the air, or at least until Drift shot them a stern look. They immediately stopped and returned to standing straight.

"Denny? Russell? What do you two say?"

She'd completely forgotten about them. Her heart dropped to her stomach for a moment, and she turned around to face the two humans a few feet behind. Denny smiled.

"I don't exactly have an open room at the moment," he said. "If that's alright, then welcome to the family, Carolyn."