Alien
Chapter One
By Dreaming of Everything

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, or the songs "Get Up, Get Up" and "You're Stronger Than Me." Please respect what is mine, though.

Summary: Defeating Megatron and defending Earth from the Decepticons is all well and good, and everyone's enjoying the chance to relax a little. (Except maybe Ironhide.) It would all be perfect, maybe even idyllic, if only that was all that was out there…

Author's Notes: My first foray into Transformers fic! Saw the movie yesterday and was suddenly bit by the inspiration bug.

Movie-only, I'm afraid, and I'm totally unfamiliar with other canons, so this is from my limited, movie-only knowledge. OCs will be introduced to fill necessary roles not covered in canon, but none will have an incredibly central role.

There will be no pairings beyond canon references to Sam/Mikaela. This is not a romance fic. (For once.)

This is the first of five planned chapters, but that number is likely to rise and could potentially fall. Action starts in chapter 2, I promise.

SPOILER WARNING for anything from the movie.

oOoOoOo

Life had finally gotten good for Sam Witwicky. He had completed all the steps of his get-his-life-in-shape plan and then some. (Step one had been the car, step two had been the girl, and steps three through whatever had involved saving the world from giant evil robots with other giant robots, one of which was currently his best friend. Go figure.)

And yeah, he was still teased mercilessly in school, and his parents hadn't really loosened up all that much, despite the fact that he saved the world, but he could live with that. Very happily, in fact.

And every so often all the Autobots would meet up, and Bumblebee would get to catch up with them all, and Sam would get to know them a little better—in-between the government intervention and the destruction of downtown Los Angeles via giant robot battle, there hadn't been much of a chance to.

And, again, there was Mikaela. Over-all, he was very happy.

It was coupled with this vague sense that things were about to go utterly, totally, wrong.

So he was paranoid. So what? A little bit of paranoia was probably healthy, after what he had gone through.

Captain Lennox had told him that you got like that, after you'd been through a war. They emailed a lot, now—part of the negotiations had been that everyone "in the know," the core group—Maggie, Glenn, Captain Lennox, Epps—had been allowed contact information, with the understanding that nothing would be transmitted, through any means, relating to the Transformers.

It wasn't that people didn't know what had happened—Los Angeles had seen to that—as it was the fact that there were people who would do a lot to get their hands on anything pertaining to the event. Anyone from the media, to mob bosses, to street crazies convinced they were sent from God to punish the unjust, (starting with the heathens of SoCal,) were potential attackers, and with the Autobots still on earth, someone finding out the wrong things could a) blow their cover and b) cause planet-wide panic.

It was summer break, and Sam had too much free time—at least, according to his parents. Video games no longer held much appeal, not after what he'd gone through, but day-long jaunts with Bumblebee and Mikaela did. They were still looking for a picnic spot secluded enough that Bee could spend some time in his non-car form, and so far his dad hadn't pulled through on his threats to make him get a part-time job. ("You never do a thing! And you still have to pay for that path you destroyed. Now everyone walks on my grass, including your car!" "I saved the world, right? Doesn't that count for something? And it wasn't me, it was Optimus who broke your path! Complain at him! And you're really freaky about the grass, Dad!")

He was maybe a little bored, but it was a good bored. The sort of bored that didn't involve dissolving into abject terror every six hours, give or take a few.

This, however, was one of the less-good parts of his new life, 'this' being waking up at five past fuckit in the morning because Mojo was yapping (loudly) for his pain pills. His leg had been pronounced healed and the cast had come off and the drug supply cut off, and he was apparently going through withdrawal. Loudly.

The dog was joined by blasts from a car horn. Sam groaned and stuck his head under his pillow. True, he had promised to head out with Bee and Mikaela for the latest episode of the ongoing picnic-spot search, but he didn't actually want to get up.

There was the crash of a door slamming shut, and then heavy footsteps down the hall.

"Shut up your car, Sam!" his dad bellowed.

"He's not my car, Dad, and you can tell him yourself!" he yelled back—even though he was working on pulling himself out of bed and finding clothes. At least he had had the forethought to pack the picnic basket the night before.

His dad stomped off, and the horn stopped a few minutes after that. Thank God.

He poked his head into the garage on his way to the kitchen. "I'm coming!" he yelled. "Hold your horses!" He snickered as the radio started playing a bad country song with "My girl ran off, and took my horses" as part of the chorus.

Sam grabbed the picnic basket, stuck the refrigerated items into the small cooler, stuck a muffin in his mouth for breakfast and headed for the car. He ducked into the driver's seat, the door shrugging itself open for him; he stowed the basket and the cooler behind the seats.

"What the hell was up with you this morning?"

"Good morning!" the radio crackled at him as the car roared to life.

"Yeah, yeah, good morning to you, too. I have an actual alarm, you know…"

The radio dial slid again. "He said, 'Get up, get up, you sleepyhead!'" (1)

Sam laughed. "You find music for the strangest things."

"Still hurts," Bumblebee admitted, using his voice.

"Yeah," sighed Sam, patting the dash comfortingly. "Still, it must be nice to be able to speak again, huh?" A smatter of applause faded in and out of the radio before it fell silent.

Mikaela was outside waiting for them as they pulled up, dressed for summer and a picnic in shorts and a tank.

"Hey, Sam," she said, sliding into the passenger seat and pausing for a quick kiss. "Hello, Bee." There was a friendly chirp, but nothing more.

"Guess your radio luck ran out," said Sam. Another beep, this time slightly more affronted.

"What direction are we headed today?" asked Sam. Mikaela pulled out a map. "We're trying for the mountains," she said. "Okay, in about five miles you're going to take a left at…"

oOo

Nothing changes in space. You can travel for eons and meet nothing more exciting than a handful of hydrogen atoms from some long-distant star. The galaxies surrounding you change glacially in their formations; everything else stays the same, darkness and vacuum and absolute nothingness.

But as you fall through space, there's a chance your path will run into another object, eventually, as vast and as empty as it is…

oOo

"This looks pretty good," said Mikaela. They were in the middle of nowhere; the last car they had passed had been an hour ago, and they were in an area that made someplace merely secluded look crowded. "In fact, I think we've found ourselves a picnic area, gents!"

"You do realize that if we get caught, whoever caught us and/or the government will never let us have the end of it?" said Sam nervously. He was looking around them for evidence of people. There wasn't any.

"This is my Grammy's land," said Mikaela as the buzzing and clacking of Bumblebee's transformation started. "We've tried to sell it, but nobody'll buy it. There's nothing out here."

There was a loud thud as Bumblebee sat down heavily on the ground, relaxing out of a stretch. It was amazing how happy he looked, how emotive his face could be.

"What's it like being in car form?" asked Mikaela curiously as she sat down on the picnic blanket she had spread next to the robot, pulling Sam down with her.

"It's—not uncomfortable," the Autobot says. "But— Can you imagine not being able to turn your head to see behind you? Kind of like that. And less mobile."

"Does it… hurt?"

"No—it's natural." He shrugged, a human gesture he'd picked up, accentuated by the 'wings' on his shoulders. Body language wasn't a natural thing for the robots to learn—it was certainly proving harder than English had been—but they were trying to learn it, at least. Some were having better luck at it than others. Ironhide was on one end of the spectrum, and Bumblebee was on the other.

The summer sun was warm, and the day was perfect for lazing around doing nothing, was the unspoken group consensus.

"We better get going," said Sam finally, as the shadows started to lengthen. "My dad'll flip out if I'm not home by curfew."

"It's one in the morning now, right?" said Mikaela, shifting herself off of Sam; they had been curled around each other, propped up against Bumblebee, looking off towards the setting sun.

"Yeah. Mom buckled, but I think it's only because she likes you."

"Your father's still firm, though. He says he knows what he'd be doing with a girl like that at your age," Bumblebee says, voice light.

"I told you not to repeat that!" hissed Sam as he (attempted) to punch Bee in the leg, all he could reach. Mikaela just laughed, although Sam still blushed. Admittedly, the make-out sessions had paled that particular reaction, but still.

oOo

"You're sunburned," said Mikaela reflectively.

"What?" said Sam, distracted.

She poked his arm by way of reply. "Ow!" he said, jumping.

"You're lucky Bee's driving. You'd have plowed us into that van over there otherwise."

The engine took on a distinctly pleased note, and the car sped up a little.

"Well, if you wouldn't try to scrape off my peeling skin…"

"Darling, you're stronger than me," (2) purred the radio.

"I think that's a comment on the weak fleshlings," said Mikaela. There was a beep of agreement.

"That includes you, too, darling," drawled Sam. "Ow! There's sunburn there!"

"Let me kiss it better, then?"

"Mmmm."

"We are lucky there's Bee."

"You're the distracting one here… Whoah!"

"What?" said Mikaela.

"Caught a glimpse of a comet out of the corner of my eye. Surprised me…"

"Really good you weren't driving."

"You're worse than my old Driver's Ed partner."

oOo

"Hey, Bee?"

There was a rustle of static from the radio in response. Sam had dropped Mikaela off at her home, and was now headed for his, and the car had been silent.

"What do you think my dad thinks of you?"

Silence.

"I just don't know. I think you make him nervous or something."

"Logical," said the car.

"You did save my life, though."

"Done a lot—"

"Already, yeah. It just kind of… Bothers me."

oOo

"Hey Mom, Dad," Sam said as he walked into the house. "What's happening?"

"There's been a whole set of meteorites," his mother responded. "Are they more of your, er, friends?"

"I don't know," said Sam. "Haven't been told if they are. Stuff does fall from the sky ordinarily, you know. Though I saw one on the drive home today."

"Most of them landed in Brazil. The authorities are relieved that it wasn't a more populated area."

"Not all of them, I guess."

"Everyone's making guesses about it being more of the robots."

"Well, as long as they don't guess the real truth… Hey, are we all out of muffins again?"

oOo

(1) "Get Up, Get Up," by Lavern Baker.

(2) "You're Stronger Than Me," by Patsy Cline