Title: Owls and Larks

Author: BlueLunacy7

Chapter Warnings: Profanity

Pairings: Sam/Bee

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, the any quotes or lyrics, or song titles in anyway, shape, or form. Basically, nothing you recognize is mine.

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Chapter 11: Dream a little dream

Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will. ~Jawaharlal Nehru

It had been 6 very long hours since the battle of Mission City that had decided the fate of the world. While there had been many grievous injuries amid the Autobots and their allies, by some miracle all casualties had been among the Decepticons' number.

The former command center of Sector Seven was now acting as temporary headquarters for the Autobots. While Optimus was using the former 'N.B.E-1' hanger as a place for negotiations, Ratchet had claimed the Allspark's chamber as his med-bay and was currently repairing Bumblebee's legs as Longarm was parked in a corner, absorbing the data-packet that Ratchet had given him.

According to Ratchet, Longarm was a 'born' as Autobot youngling rather than Decepticon or a neutral. Even though he, like most of earth's technology, had been build from Decepticon technology, he had somehow imprinted on Bumblebee, identifying himself as an Autobot. Once he had absorbed the data-packet, Ironhide would take over his basic weapons training.

"You have all the parts you need?" Sam asked, curled up as close to Bee as he could get and not be on his lap or in Ratchet's way, carefully grooming himself. Meticulously he pulled off scales that were dull in color as if they were covered with a fine layer of dust and ate them to for the nutrients contained; leaving soft, scale-patterned skin exposed which in turn harden into new shiny scales. Dragons had two types of shedding. A light shedding that was simply the top layer of his scales that came in strips or the heavy shedding he was dealing with now in which the whole scale came off. Neither was fun since they both itched horribly.

Five hours after the battle of Mission City, Sam had awakened with a pounding headache, nausea and pain that were fading fast. While most of the injuries from Mission City had healed, he lost several of his teeth (they would grow back) and the inside of his mouth was still tender as was his throat and crop.

And he was really, really, really hungry.

"Yes, your government is...ah…'footing the bill' for the spare parts we need." Ratchet replied as he worked.

"Good." Sam replied, pleased with information. It was really good since Sam had been quite willing to start selling off pieces of himself to get the money they needed. Dragon parts were always in high demand. "And they're going to be alright?"

"Yes, yes, both Bumblebee and Jazz will be fine." Ratchet replied grumpily as he continued to work.

"Careful Scales," Jazz called out from where he was parked in car mode, "Doc Hatchet has tendency to throw things at doubters of his skills."

"You should be recharging." Ratchet growled at Jazz, "Megatron nearly ripped your spark out."

Jazz brushed it off, "I'm fine Doc."

"Oh no, I do not doubt the Great and Powerful Ratchet's skills," Sam replied with a smile, "Just I'm kind of fond of Bee and you're the only one short enough for me to talk to without looking up too far."

"Haha haha haha haha haha haha haha haha ha." Came from Bee's radio as Jazz stated with a laugh of his own, "Ironhide's right, you are a mouthy glitch."

"You're going to have a glitch if you don't get back into recharge." Ratchet commanded, raising a wrench as if to throw it at the Solstice.

"Your wish is my command, oh Great and Powerful Ratchet." Jazz replied laughing.

Sam turned his attention to Bee, "So, you feeling better Bee?"

"…when I am with you, my needle hits groove, and a song rings out so clear… How you been feelin'?...How you been feelin'... ?"

"I'm just hungry." Sam said with a smile; "I'm going to put Papa John's out of business when I get out of here."

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Mikaela Banes couldn't help but wonder what the hell she had gotten into as she stood at the entrance to the Allspark's chamber watching Sam easily converse with the Autobots as if he had known them for years. Ever since she had gotten into Sam's car, her life had been one surprise after another.

Finding out that said car was giant alien robot and that earth next battle ground in an intergalactic war between two fractions, one bent on destruction, the other trying to stop them.

Finding out that a secret branch of the U.S government had powerful alien artifact and a hostile alien robot under Hover Dam, like a dirty secret hidden in the basement.

Finding out that Sam was a shape-shifting dragon. Strangely, it was the last that had truly thrown her for a loop.

While she didn't believe in little green men from Mars per say, the universe was too big for there not to be life elsewhere. But dragons were purely myth and legend, creatures found in the pages of fantasy books. Learning that you were attending school with one was a bit jarring to say the least. It didn't help that she had slight crush on Sam, not that she had ever acted on it before. She and Sam were on different sides of the high school spectrum. She was popular and he was not, showing any interest in him on her part would threaten her status. Though if he chased her, well that would be fine. It was expected.

But Sam didn't.

Oh she knew he thought she was pretty. She had seen him look her over when they were out in hallway between classes, taking in her form as the other boys did. But unlike those other boys, there was no telltale lust in his eyes, he admired her the way someone would admire a beautiful art piece, with appreciation but nothing more.

At first she simply assume he was gay, but he had dated a Goth girl for about two months and according to her, Sam was very gifted in bed. Intense was the word she used. His lack of interest made Mikaela want him more; it was a matter of pride.

That night he had giving her a ride home, she had seen a hunger in his eyes. Thinking she had won, she almost kissed him until Bee had interfered. Undeterred, she had tried again, only to be dragged into an alien war and learned that Sam's car had an interest in him as well.

Then it had turned out Sam was a dragon, which made her want him more. Who wouldn't want a dragon?

The competition was on.

A car couldn't be to Sam was a woman could be and beside dragons preferred maidens as she had told Bee. When Bee had a pitched a fit and drove off, Sam snapped at her. Not one to give up, she stayed with Sam and had introduced herself as Sam's girlfriend to his parents when they were after the glasses. She still held out when Sam had snapped at her when Optimus had saved from the Sector 7 agents.

But during Sector 7's capture of Bee and later at Mission City, she knew she didn't have a chance. The way Sam had fought the agents, howling and screaming the entire time, becoming vicious and violent, the way Sam had looked as if his heart would break when Bee's legs had gotten blown off in Mission City stomped out any hope she had about snagging him for herself.

All she could do now was bow out gracefully.

Her introspection was interrupted by Maggie and Glen.

"Oh my god…" Maggie gasped as Glen mumble with wide eyes, "Wow…"

It was a toss-up really, who was being gawked at the most: Sam or the Autobots.

Sam was really a beautiful dragon, built more like a cat than a lizard, with gleaming scales in iridescent shades of blue. An elegant head in with large almond-shaped green eyes was set gracefully on a neck shaded that connected to strong, svelte body in ultramarine with deep blue breast scales and dark sapphire shading along the spine with legs in a unique combination of fine bones and solid muscles. His long tail curled around the cruel cornflower blue talons of his blue-black forefeet.

"Hi guys!" Sam greeted cheerfully with that strange accent of his, "Come on over, I promise I won't bite….not hard anyway."

"…Come on over…Pull up a seat-take a load off your feet…"

As they walked into the chamber, Mikaela glance over to where Bee and Jazz were asked "Will they be okay?"

"Yes, they will be fine, as soon people stop asking me that and let me work." Ratchet snapped as he worked.

"….just a grouch …."

"Ignore Nurse Ratchet, he's a grump." Sam advised. Ratchet glared him, grabbing a wrench, "Yeah, throw that me." Sam dared him, completely without fear, "I'll return it with interest."

Ratchet went back to work, mumbling what sounded like "Mouthy glitch." There were noises from both Bee and Jazz that sounded like laughter that stopped when Ratchet glared at them.

"Apparently 'mouthy glitch' is my new name here." Sam informed them in a stage whisper.

Seeing Sam was in a good mood, Mikaela finally worked up the nerve to ask the question she had been wanting to ask ever she had first saw him as a dragon, "Can…can I touch you?"

"Sure, I don't mind." Sam looked over at Maggie and Glen, "You guys can too if you want."

Gently, Mikaela ran her hand across one shoulder, marveling the silky smoothness of his scales and the muscles coiled beneath. It reminded her of her cousin's pet snake except that Sam was giving off a lot of heat. As close as she was, she saw faint swirling patterns on each individual scale and that skin around his shoulder joint wasn't scaled; it felt like fine suede under her fingers.

"You're warm." Glen exclaimed, brushing his hands along the scales.

Mikaela giggled a little as Sam's ears twitched. They almost didn't match the rest of him, charmingly large and mobile; they resembled the ears of a deer. Not something one would expect on a dragon but she couldn't help but find them cute.

"Of course I am." Sam replied as he angled his large head so he could look at them. Mikaela could see that his eyes weren't simply green but many shades of green in striations around a vertical pupil, "Dragons aren't reptiles, you know."

"Weren't you red before?" Maggie asked in puzzlement.

"Dragons can change the texture and colors of their scales for both camouflage and defense," Sam explained changing his scales to red, then to green and back to his original color, "or when they feel strong emotions."

Bee apparently decided that he too would like to pet Sam, placing a hand on the back of Sam's head and running it down his spine like one would pet a cat. The effect on Sam was instantaneous.

"Oh. My. God." Sam sighed in pleasure and began kneading the concrete beneath his feet as he leaned into Bee's hand with his eyes half closed, "Right there, right there, right there, oh my god, don't stop, don't stop, don't ever stop. Ooooh." Sam babbled, simply going limp as endorphins flowed through his body chasing away the last of his pain when Bee started rubbing small circles at the nape of his neck.

"Feel good Sam?" Mikaela giggled at his reaction.

"You have no idea". Sam replied as he became a puddle of dragon. He had been so focused on enjoying the feeling that he didn't see Ironhide, Lennox and Epps come into the chamber.

"Your mom is scary, Sam." Epps said by way of greeting

"I like her." Ironhide said chuckling

Sam slowly raised his head, "What did she do?"

"Right now, she is demanding to see you." Ironhide said, "I think we should accommodate her before she and your father tear the fragging place down looking for you."

"Right." Sam nodding before asking, "Are they coming here or do I go to them?"

"They're heading this way. "

"Do they know of us?" Ratchet asked as he finished the repairs. Bee stood up and tested his new legs by stepping over Sam to get out of Ratchet's way.

"No." Epps answered, "the SecDef and Optimus decided that it would be better if they see Sam's okay first."

"If they're anything like Mouthy glitch here, they'll be fine." Ironhide commented as he and the others transformed into their terrestrial modes.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"There's also a P.A.R.A representative here for you as well." Lennox said as Optimus rumbled into the chamber, along with several vehicles that looked like golf carts, one of which contained Sam's parents.

"Oh my god, Dragonfly!" Judy Witwicky's voice rang out as she jumped off the vehicle before it came to a complete stop, followed by her husband as they ran to Sam ignoring everything else in the room.

That was until she caught sight of Simmons ranting to Lennox and Epps nearby. With a pace and posture that Bumblebee recognized, having seen echoes of it in Sam when he was upset, she stomped up to Simmons and tapped him on the shoulder. When the Agent turned to look, she punched him in the face, throwing her whole body into it. Simmons' nose gave way with a loud crunch and he staggered with the force of the blow, blood pouring down his face.

"What the fuck did you do to my baby?" Judy screamed as her follow-up hit to his stomach knocked the agent on his ass.

Ironhide started laughing uproariously at the sight as "...Mama said knock you out!.." Blasted from Bee's speakers followed by the opening of Eye Of The Tiger.

Sam shook his head, embarrassed, "Jesus Christ mom."

"Judy! Judy! I know you're pissed baby," Ron said as he grabbed his wife and dragged her away from the fallen Agent before she could kick him in the family jewels, "it's totally understandable but if you start beating the crap out of people, they're going to arrest us and then we won't be able to help Sam okay?"

"Relax, chill." Sam said, trying to calm her, "I'm okay."

"Don't you dare lie to me, Samuel James Witwicky!" She snapped making Sam feel like he was six years old and had broke a lamp. All three names always meant trouble, "I know the signs of a major shed and you weren't due for another six months! The only reason it would happening now is because you lost most of them defending yourself from an attack!"

"Ma'am. Sir." Lennox thankfully interrupted as he approached them with Epps, "I'm Captain Lennox and this is Sergeant Epps. You have a remarkable son"

"We know." She turned her ire on Lennox. "What happened to my son, Captain Lennox? It's obvious that he's been in a fight."

"There's also the fact you transformed in front of hundred humans." A pretty young woman with her black hair in pigtails and dressed in dark clothes said, "P.A.R.A concerned about exposure."

"I was in Mission City during the attack. I had no choice." Sam answered her when he saw that Lennox was handling his parents, "You're P.A.R.A representative, Amy?"

"Yeah, they thought you'd respond better to me." Amy Sutton said rolling her eyes, "the higher ups want you to rejoin P.A.R.A."

"Well I'll be sure to send my regards along with my answer," Sam growled, P.A.R.A's betrayal fresh in his mind, "as soon as I find a fruit basket that expresses how much I hope they all die of explosive diarrhea."

"I told them you wouldn't but they insisted I ask." Amy said with a smile that showed sharp teeth, "But there's been a bit of a palace revolution so to speak and P.A.R.A is under new management at the moment."

"Really? What happened?"

"The way Badcoke handled you and Sector 7 was a big no-no." She explained, "One of the reasons that P.A.R.A was created was to protect paranormals from those who would turn us into science experiments and while your car was thought of as a sentient haunt it was under our jurisdiction."

"So what happened to him?" Sam asked.

"Well, Badcoke was fired in such disgrace that he's thought to have left the county." Amy reported with a straight face as she looked into his eyes.

She was good, almost convincing, "And the real story?"

Again Amy flashed a toothy smile, "Nobody really knows, but there's a rumor that one of the people he screwed over had him for dinner."

This time Sam flashed his own dragonish smile. "Who's in charge now?"

"Tobias Hauser."

"I've met him, he'd good guy." Sam commented, "I'm still not rejoining P.A.R.A."

"Understandable," She replied nodding "Good luck, Sam."

"Thanks."

Once she left, Epps asked, "So someone took Badcoke to dinner?"

"No, someone had him for dinner." Sam explained as he stretched, "In other words, someone ate him."

"Ate him?" Epps asked in disgust, "You mean like ate him, ate him?"

"Yeah."

"Giant alien robots, dragons and now cannibals," Epps shook his head, "Man, we have landed in the freakin' Twilight Zone."

"Well, it wouldn't be cannibalism I don't think, since whatever ate him was probably a different species." Sam replied with a slight smile before nodding to his parents. "Lennox, do they know about our special friends?"

"Nope." Lennox said with a shake of his head, "We decided to let you do the introductions."

"Lucky me." Sam replied standing up. At his words, the Autobots began to change back into their robot shapes. He swallowed a laugh at his parents' flabbergasted expressions as they watched the transformations.

"Okay, guys these are my parents, Ron and Judy Witwicky. Mom, Dad, this is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, weapons specialist Ironhide, don't point your cannons at them, chief medical officer; Ratchet. And this is Bumblebee, my…friend."

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It was close to midnight before Sam was allowed to go home. Both mentally and physically exhausted form the days events, he barely made it to his bed before his body gave out, refusing to go any farther. He was asleep before he hit the mattress.

Deep with in the realm of sleep, he dreamed.

He ran through the lush forest, darting between huge trees, fleeing the sounds of the battle cries and the clangs of metal upon metal, the sounds of a combat that he could not see, from the voices riding the winds and swirled in his head, some familiar, some not..

"The Cube was merely a vessel."

"The Transformers were on Earth... a long time ago."

"The Fallen shall rise again!"

"Is the future of our race not worth a single organic life?"

"We're all going together!"

"I had a bit of a mild panic attack earlier, right?"

"Real ancient robots, oldest of the old!"

"Damn, I'm good."

"We'll provide you with cover fire...ahhh!"

"Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing."

"It's supposed to hurt; it's an ass-kickin'!"

"We got a whole bunch of fight coming our way!"

"They are here to hunt you!"

"I'll take you ALL on!"

"I claim your sun."

"In my Decepticon life, I never did a thing worth doing until now..."

"Bust a cap in his ass, lock him in the trunk, ain't nobody going know nothin', know what I mean?"

"You are so WEAK!"

"You gotta wonder: if God made us in His image, who made him?"

"I am going to kill you slowly, painfully, but first, we have some delicate work to do."

"Somewhere buried in this desert, our ancestors built a great machine. "

"We have been watching you for a long, long time."

"I…love…you…Sam…"

"Don't scream so loudly." Dragon Sam whispered over the soft rasp of his scales against one another. Glowing symbols swirled and dance around him in response, leading him out of the forest into the desert, the voices began to fade into silence.

Above in blue-black sky, the stars were arranged in strange patterns with no familiar constellations to guild him. He began to walk, changing from Human to Dragon and back again, to where Bumblebee sat in his bipedal shape among the ruins of huge sand castles.

"You don't belong here." Sam pointed out to Bee as he climbed up the crumbling ruins in his human form.

"I was borrowed." Bee replied, his voice soft with crisp English accent, "To speak."

"Why doesn't it speak?" Sam asked, his claws leaving scratches the sand as he was once again in his dragon form.

"It has no voice, not anymore." Bee replied sadly, "Nor does it have a body. It needs you hold it for a bit."

"I'll break; I'll splinter holding that much." Human Sam stated forcefully as he paced next to Bee, "I'll become a shattered mirror with a broken reflection."

"It's possible that the dice will roll that way."

"It's too much to ask for me to hold the key to the universe in my hands." Dragon Sam said vehemently.

"The universe will stop spinning." Bee stated as he brushed a hand across Sam's scaled skin, "The suns will go out one by one."

"Why not use the voice of God?" Human Sam asked, leaning into the caress.

"He's speaks of Damnation rather than Salvation." Bee replied, "It doesn't want to listen to his hellfire sermons."

"Why not use the brother then?" Dragon Sam suggested in frustration, "The Orphan who speaks of peace, the last of the first thirteen before the thirteenth lost the name?"

"He was far, too far to jump and reach while dying."

"I am an unworthy lizard with delusions of grandeur!" Human Sam shouted, "Chose another to hold it!"

"It was of metal before, powerful with no one who listened as it begged for its children to stop." Bee said sadly, "Now it is an undertone that will be cloaked in sparks, whispering the roads of a map."

"And if I say no?" Dragon Sam growled.

"It will be still and silent for it can only ask." Bee stated with an air of quiet sorrow, "But the world will become dark and cold."

"I have no choice but to keep the suns from burning out." Human Sam said as he sat in the sand next to Bee, head in his hands.

Bee's voice whispered into Sam's ear as the dream buried itself deep into Sam's subconscious, "You think you know what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun."

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Author's notes:

Songs used:

Shania Twain Come On Over

Alien Ant Farm Smooth Criminal

Ultimate Fakebook When I'm With You, I'm Ok

Gorillaz Feel Good Inc.

Ashlee Simpson Boyfriend

Barbra Streisand - When I Dream

Diana Krall - East Of The Sun (And West Of The Moon)

Yay! The final chapter! I hope I did a good job. I rewrote this thing seven times.

I'm sorry it took me so long. To make up for it, I'm going to let you guys choose the title of Owls and Larks' sequel.

Here are your choices:

Lights Fall

Rising Sun, Falling Star

Shattered Sunrise

Broken Twilight

Unkindness of Ravens

Faint Young Sun

The Hanged Man

I have a poll on my profile page or you can leave to choice in your review.

Thanks for reading everyone.

Happy Holidays!

-BlueLunacy7